


Still Lost

by unfolded73



Series: The Lostverse [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: F/M, M/M, Pre-Journey's End, Reunion Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-25
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 21:05:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 30,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded73/pseuds/unfolded73
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic was born out of the idea that being so close to Rose in "Partners in Crime" left some vague impression on the Doctor's brain. It then turned into a sprawling reunion!fic with dream sequences, trips to Cardiff, and Donna as the hero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written between April and June 2008, now AU of course. What can I say, it was a different time back then.

It was the middle of the night and wasn’t, and the time rotor pulsed above his head as he absently fiddled with the controls. The console room was quiet and yet seemed to echo faintly with Donna’s laughter and excitement from earlier in the evening. It had been a passing strange day, even for him. Waving at fat, indeed. Donna knew how to cut right to the heart of matter, he’d give her that.

 

_“What about Rose?”  
“Still lost.”_

 

He’d answered Donna’s questions, then as usual his mind had skittered to the next topic before he could fixate. For someone whose brain could multitask in ways that would leave those opportunistic drones at business seminars drooling, he was capable of some rather thorough brooding on a single subject when he put his mind to it. Just ask poor Martha, more often than not the witness to his thousand-yard stare when his thoughts turned to _her_. To _Rose_ , he corrected his internal monologue. There was nothing magical about her name, and no reason he couldn’t think it. Rose. Rose. _Rose._

_See?_ he thought, sitting and stretching his legs and propping his feet on the edge of the console. _Easy peasy._ What progress he’d made. This train of thought no longer brought that uncomfortable lump to his throat. And now the TARDIS was again no longer empty; Donna and her frankly terrifying quantity of luggage were stowed and sorted and she slept. He was happy, he had to grudgingly admit. Really almost genuinely happy, and it felt a bit of a betrayal. There was a perverse joy in being heartsick, in allowing himself to wade hip-deep into memory, in closing his eyes and almost imagining that he could smell her, all fruity shampoo and laundry soap and sweat. It was a blessing and a curse that those sense memories were starting to fade. 

Some of his memories of that time with her were worn down so smooth by constant replay that he started to doubt whether the details were even correct. Had she really allowed her shoulder to brush against his so intimately as they walked down the street in 2012 London or was it a daydream he had conjured during that long year that never was? It had been like a sensory deprivation chamber sometimes, that year on the Valiant, and his brain had created lurid images of Rose. He had thought of her in ways that he had never allowed himself while in her presence. With no expectation of seeing her again and little expectation that he would survive much past the point when the Master finally became bored of him, he had allowed himself the luxury of fantasy. It was mildly disgusting now, imagining himself a withered old man with such a pathetic, desperate longing for a young blonde girl in tight jeans and a too-short T-shirt. 

 

_“How long are you going to stay with me?”  
“Forever.”_

 

The time would probably come when whole days would go by and he wouldn’t think of her, wouldn’t imagine what she would say if she found herself together with him in this or that scrape. The time would come when her features would blur in his memory like those of all of the others had, when he would have to struggle to conjure in his mind exactly what her voice had sounded like. Perhaps it wouldn’t happen with this incarnation, which had, after all, come to life while his head and his hearts had been full to bursting with her. Everything about the way he was now was shaped by her – his youth, his face, his accent all bore her fingerprints. But still, eventually this body would go the way of the others and the person who came after would be that much more removed from her. It was probably why he was starting to dread regeneration more than he used to. There was the fact that he was running out of chances, of course, but there was also the fact that as long as he wore this face there was still something of Rose with him. 

He sighed and stood up. _Not done brooding after all_ , he mused. 

 

_“I’ve made my choice and I’m never gonna leave you.”_

 

Perhaps it was just the fact of having someone new on board, but his mind kept springing back to Rose like a rubber band stretched too tight. Adventuring with Donna kept him distracted and entertained and fairly chipper most of the time, but at night when Donna slept his mind returned to this well-worn ground. Ever since the night in the alley when he and Donna had come to their understanding and he had been reduced to playing hotel porter with her bags, thoughts of Rose clung to him like soaking wet clothes. He seemed to have created a strangely clear image of her, her hair a softer blonde, her makeup the subtler shades of a more mature woman, her clothes different from any he had ever seen. This had never happened to him before; even in all those wicked fantasies on the Valiant she had appeared as his Rose with her thick mascara and her hoodies and her too-blonde hair. This sombre woman haunting the back of his mind was something new. How old was she now? How much time had passed for her there? His thoughts circled and circled as he paced around the console. He stopped worrying about forgetting her. 

After the Ood planet it felt like his mind had been stirred up with a whisk and allowed to settle into some new pattern. The echoes of the Ood-song still reverberated along his nerves sometimes, but also something else – some mournful refrain that felt like it had been there all along and only now after he had been sensitized by the Ood could he hear it properly. It beat in his blood like a third heartbeat and pulsed along with the time rotor. It filled his dreams on those occasional nights when he grabbed an hour or two of sleep and when he woke he could almost smell the sea of Bad Wolf Bay even though he had, of course, never smelled it in the first place. 

Donna nudged him and cajoled him until he explained to her why he had seemingly regressed. “I thought you were happy when I came on board.”

“I was. I am.” 

“You’ve gotten so quiet. What’s going on in that daft Time Lord brain?”

So he told her. For all of her brashness, he found it easy to talk to her, the words spilling out before he could think too hard about any reasons to hold back. 

“That’s what mourning is like though, innit?” she responded sensibly. “You take three steps forward and then two steps back.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps.” And that night, even though he was tired, he avoided sleep. He played music too loud in the console room. He performed complex mathematical calculations in his head. But it wasn’t enough. She still haunted him, this odd, sad Rose, this stranger who kept walking away.


	2. Chapter 2

They sat at a table at an outdoor café on Prexus IV in the year 5347. Or was it 5437? Donna couldn’t remember. She opened her mouth to ask, then deciding it wasn’t important, closed it. She took another sip of her mojito – at least, she thought it was a mojito. She asked the Doctor which drink on the holographic menu which floated over their table would be most like a mojito and he had shrugged at her blankly. So she had described the drink to the waiter and he had ambled off, returning with something that was at least mojito-like. Quite good, really. The leaves in it weren’t mint, exactly, but it worked and she was satisfied.

This trip had been decidedly uneventful thus far, which had been a relief after Pompeii and the Ood planet. Best of all it was warm and sunny and covered with attractive tourists on holiday. Her eyes followed a tanned bloke as he sauntered by the café in tight shorts and sunglasses. She could almost imagine she was somewhere on Earth: Florida maybe, or Honolulu, except for the omnipresent service droids and the fact that the sun was sort of orange and the sand was sort of bluish-green. (“Copper sulphate,” the Doctor had said, whipping on his glasses and crouching briefly to examine it.) Still, it was lovely. He had brought her here that morning, saying they needed some rest and that the beaches were beautiful. Donna agreed wholeheartedly on all counts. After a few hours of absolutely glorious shopping, they had come here to grab a late-afternoon meal.

Donna’s attention returned to the Doctor, who had ordered a drink which sat untouched on the table in front of him. It was something sort of pink and orange and fruity, and Donna had laughed at it, resulting in little more than the Doctor’s patented arched eyebrow and a small smirk which vanished so quickly she wasn’t sure it had been there in the first place. Now he was staring off in the distance vacantly. Donna thought about trying to pester him out of it, but after their long and draining conversation the night before, she thought he probably deserved a break. She sat quietly and sipped her drink and allowed him to brood.

***

“You’ve gotten so quiet. What’s going on in that daft Time Lord brain?” They were sipping tea in the TARDIS kitchen, Donna at the table and the Doctor leaning against the counter, one hand in his pocket. The hand emerged and raked through his hair. She watched as he broke eye contact and stared into the hallway briefly.

He sighed. “It’s not … it’s sort of nothing really, nothing new. That is to say, nothing’s happened. But I can’t –” He stopped, seeming to consider his words. Donna watched silently, trying not to startle him out of speaking.

The Doctor pulled the chair across from her out and turned it around, sitting in it backwards with his gangly arms propped across the back. He ran a hand through his hair again. “For the first, oh, several months at least after I lost Rose, I thought of her every hour. Every minute. Everything I did, I imagined what she would do or say if she were with me. I dreamt about her. Her scent hung in the TARDIS like… I mean, not her scent exactly. It’s difficult to describe properly. I have senses that humans don’t. I just mean I sensed echoes of her presence in the TARDIS. Always, in the back of my mind, there she was. Talking to me, touching –” He stopped, glancing at the ceiling. “It made it difficult. It’s why things with Martha were never …, it’s why I hurt her.” 

“Don’t you think you’re blaming yourself too much for that? She must’ve known. I mean, it was obvious to me when I met you that you were hanging on by a thread.”

“I wasn’t like that with her,” he said, shaking his head. “When you met me I had literally just said goodbye to Rose. Moments before. She was, she is, trapped in a parallel world. A parallel Earth that I can never ever reach. I had one chance to see her, to say goodbye to her. Just two minutes …” He scrubbed a hand over his face, as if to rub out the memory.

Donna was startled by this new information. “I’m sorry, I never knew, I didn’t understand. When you said lost, I thought … well, I don’t know what I thought.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, waving her off. “The point is, when you met me I had no hope of hiding it. It was a gaping wound. With Martha, I put on a brave face. I never explained. If I had, maybe she wouldn’t have –”

“She wouldn’t have held out any hope for the two of you?” Donna asked, smiling slightly and sipping her tea.

He shrugged. “What I’m trying to get at is that gradually, it did get better. Time heals all wounds and all that. I thought of her less, and it didn’t hurt as much.” He laughed, a sharp bark. “I started to fret that I was forgetting her, that before too long I wouldn’t be able to summon a picture of her in my mind properly.”

Donna tentatively reached out and covered his hand with her own. “That’s perfectly natural. It’s normal to start to forget.” 

He shook his head at her words. “Then, I don’t know, something happened. It’s like something fractured inside my own head. I don’t know any other way to describe it. A dam broke, and she came spilling out again. Ever since, well, since you came on board, not that it’s your fault,” he added hastily. “Ever since then, I can’t shake her. And the Ood planet made it worse.”

“How so?”

“It’s hard to explain,” he said, rubbing one eye violently with a finger as if he was trying to drive it back into the socket. “It has to do with their telepathy and the singing. It’s like, it’s like I’m hearing another song now, her song –” He laughed another humourless laugh. “Well, doesn’t that sound maudlin? Next thing you know you’ll find me wandering around the TARDIS listening to Sarah McLachlan and writing bad poetry. Or … who’s that group? Snow Patrol, that’s it. I’ll be listening to Snow Patrol.”

Donna raised an eyebrow. “You know a surprising amount of popular culture for a 900-year-old alien.”

“I have a rather impressive brain, I can hold a lot of things in it.”

“Everything you’re saying, it’s just you mourning her.”

“No, Donna, it’s more than that,” he said, frustrated. “I was feeling happy not long ago. Content, even. Happy and content. Now, I just feel heavy. My mind is spinning its wheels. I can’t find third gear. And other … automobile metaphors.”

“That’s what mourning is like though, innit?” she responded. “You take three steps forward and then two steps back.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps.” 

She started to leave it alone, then she thought of something. “Do you have any pictures of her?”

The Doctor looked up, vaguely surprised. “Why?”

Donna shrugged. “I don’t know. Just a passing fancy. Thought it might help, if you showed me –” She left off abruptly as he leapt from his chair, knocking it to the floor as he dashed from the room.

He returned after only a minute, a small cluster of photos in one hand. He righted his chair, turning it back to face the table properly and collapsing into it. “I don’t have many, I’m not really one to take pictures. Well, not at all one to take pictures. But she did sometimes, or other people …” He handed her the first one. It was a slightly blurry snap of three people in a restaurant, mugging for the camera. A blonde girl with messily braided hair and a red sweatshirt sat next to a ridiculously handsome dark-haired man in a tight T-shirt. On the other side was an older man, perhaps in his early 40’s, wearing a black leather jacket and a daft grin. He was also passably handsome, if a little big-eared. “Mickey took that one in Cardiff. That’s Rose,” he said somewhat unnecessarily, pointing to the girl in the middle, “and that’s Jack.”

“Who’s the other one?”

He smiled a too-broad grin. “Why that’s me, of course.” The Doctor winked.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“It is!” he protested, his voice rising an octave. “But Time Lord regeneration is a topic for another day.” He passed over another picture before she could protest further. “This was at Christmas, the year before you and I met.”

Donna looked down at a picture of Rose and the Doctor, sitting at a messy table, the remains of Christmas dinner evident. The Doctor, Donna was amused and not a little shocked to see, wore a red paper crown. He and Rose were both leaning in and smiling impossibly wide smiles at the camera, their cheeks pressed together. “You look happy.”

“We were,” the Doctor replied. “Well, and nervous. She was still getting used to the new me then.”

“Time Lord regeneration?” she asked somewhat mockingly.

“Topic for another day.” He handed her three pictures in rapid succession. “Her mother, Jackie, took these one of the times that I took her back home for a visit. It was her birthday, or near enough, and we had a party. Well, when I say party, I mean we had cake. Good cake, that was. Chocolate, with this fudge filling, it was brill –”

“You know, she looks sort of familiar.” Donna squinted at the birthday pictures, turning them this way and that. These photos were of Rose alone, blowing out candles and opening presents. Her hair was shorter here than in the previous pictures, and there was something about her face … Donna couldn’t place it, but she felt like she’d seen her before. 

“Does she?” the Doctor asked, interested.

Donna shook her head, putting the pictures down on the table. “Probably just reminds me of someone from the telly.” 

He handed her the last picture. This one was more dog-eared than the others. It was taken in the evening and showed the two of them reclined on a couch, their feet up on a footstool. Rose’s hair was done up in French braids down either side of her head and she appeared to be watching a TV that was just out of frame, casting them with a slightly phosphorescent glow. Her head was pillowed on the Doctor’s shoulder, one hand splayed across his chest. The Doctor, for his part, was looking not at the TV but had his neck craned slightly and was studying Rose herself, drinking her in with his eyes. “Jackie took that one too. I didn’t even realize until she gave it to me later, on another visit. The last visit, as it turned out.”

Donna stared silently at the picture for a while. “You loved her very much.”

The Doctor cleared his throat, hesitating. “Yes,” he finally answered.

Donna looked up at him and smiled. “Thank you for sharing these with me.” Then her grin widened. “God only knows what such a pretty young woman saw in you though. Not very smart, this one? All beauty and no brains? Or was she very, very nearsighted?”

He snorted at her indignantly and made a grab for the pictures which Donna dodged. “You sure she didn’t fancy this bloke?” she asked, shuffling the pictures and pointing at Jack.

He laughed, and there was real humour in it finally. “Oh, everyone fancies Jack. He’s just that sort of a man.” He grabbed again for the photos, successfully this time. “I’ll take you to meet him someday,” the Doctor said as he breezed out of the room.

Donna darted up quickly to follow him. “Really? When?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor dreams.

After three weeks, even the Doctor was forced to sleep, and dreams pounced like hungry wolves.

The spaceship was almost completely quiet. He could feel a low hum under the soles of his feet, too low to hear. The air smelled of engine grease and mildew and cooking meat, and as he walked the corridors he found himself keeping an eye out for Arthur. It was really too perfect for a dream, he thought, a horse on a spaceship, and probably symbolized something to do with wanting to have sex with his mother. Of course, sometimes a horse on a spaceship was just a horse on a spaceship. 

When he came to the fireplace, he didn’t hesitate. He climbed up and pulled the lever,

\----

and found himself not in Versailles, but in a room filled with books and tapestries and decay. In the fading light he could just make out a suit of armour against one wall. A strong wind whistled outside, rattling the window panes and lending the room a bone-aching chill. Outside, above the trees, a clear sky revealed the glow of a full moon.

“I always hated this room. My father’s disapproval always rang truest in this room. Filled with books I didn’t have the aptitude for.”

The Doctor turned towards the speaker. A familiar man in a sombre suit stood against the mistletoe carving on one of the solid wood doors. Below his face was a gaping, jagged hole where his throat was supposed to be. His shirt, once crisp and white, was entirely soaked with fresh, red blood.

“Sir Robert, you’ve certainly seen better days.”

“I suppose I have. But then, so have you.”

“True.” The Doctor began walking the perimeter of the room to avoid looking at Robert’s ruined neck. 

“Do you know why you’re here?” asked Sir Robert.

“Because even my subconscious has a weakness for a good library?” He picked a book off the shelf at random and looked at the cover. Jack London’s _The Call of the Wild_. “Huh,” he murmured to himself, “anachronistic _and_ lacking in subtlety.”

“Because it all comes down to the Wolf in the end.”

“Does it?” asked the Doctor, his voice slightly higher. “Well, it certainly did for you.”

“And for you.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sir Robert began walking too, slowly circling the room, keeping pace with the Doctor, his hand trailing lightly along the shelves. “It’s interesting. I met my death here, but for you it was a honeymoon.”

The Doctor stopped walking. “What do you mean, honeymoon?”

“You and your feral child. With your laughter and wonder, your hearts full of each other. We clawed for our lives and you played games.”

“Played games,” the Doctor scoffed. “We saved a lot of lives. Would you have preferred we not be here? Then everyone would have died. Your wife, your queen –”

“True. But at least the name Torchwood would have died too. How different might your life have been?”

The Doctor stared at him blankly. “I’m actually perfectly capable of self-recrimination during my many waking hours. I’m an expert, in point of fact. So don’t bother. I’ve been down this road so many times, I know all the signposts.”

“Do you? I think there are some you may have missed.” 

“What does that _mean_?”

“She is returning.” Sir Robert stopped next to one of the doors, listening. “The wolf approaches,” he whispered. “Run, Doctor! I’ll hold it off.”

The Doctor turned around and for the first time noticed a metal hatch at the other end of the room. He shrugged, approaching it and spinning the wheel to open the door. “Well, at least you can’t get any deader.” The bolt gave with a heavy thunk. The Doctor opened the hatch and stepped through

\----

into the dingy control room of a base for deep space exploration.

Zach looked up at him and spoke angrily. “There’s nothing we can do from here.”

“Oh, I don’t know, isn’t there? There’s always something we can do. We’re clever, you and I.” The hatch clanged closed behind him.

“Speak for yourself.”

“Always do.” The Doctor frowned. “What is it we’re trying to do, exactly? And why are you still here?”

“Same reason you are. There’s always someone who needs help. Needs to be saved. It’s bloody exhausting.”

“It’s not so bad. Gives me something to do.” The Doctor turned in place slowly, taking in the flashing yellow alarms and the dark, metal angles of every corner of the dim room. He looked up. The black hole stared back. “I promise I won’t go mad,” he muttered. 

“So you make the choice. You make the call. Twenty thousand lives here versus billions there. Harriet Jones for Harold Saxon. A family destroyed by torture and servitude and a year wandering the Earth in exchange for salvation and forgiveness. And you say that you know the right path because of who you are. But can you really? Nobody’s perfect.”

The Doctor tore his eyes away from the sight above him and glared at Zach. “What choice do I have? There’s no one else.”

“It’s never enough, is it? You run and you run and you try to fix things, but does it help? Does anything get better? Does the new path for humanity hurt less than the one you steered us from?”

“I have to believe that it does.”

“Is that your religion, Doctor?”

“No.”

“No,” agreed Zach. “Was _she_? What faith are you left with now?”

“I don’t need to be with her to have faith in her.”

“Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth?” Zach laughed. “But you don’t know. She could’ve died the next day and you would never ever know. You imagine a fantastic life. You fear and hope that she is living the grand adventure of a job and taxes and childbirth. Instead she got a car crash. She died with her face a mask of blood, gasping your name.”

“That’s a lie.”

Zach shrugged. “Could be. All things are possible until you open the box.”

The Doctor smirked. “You actually can’t scare me with quantum mechanics.”

“Of course,” Zach said as he pressed a few buttons, “maybe it’s the other way round. Maybe it’s coming back to you that will kill her.”

“That’s never going to happen.”

“Never say never ever.” The station started to shake violently. “Incoming!” shouted Zach. “Hold on, Doctor! This is going to be a big one!” The Doctor looked around for a split second, suddenly pitched to the floor in his next breath. His vision narrowed as he stared into the gaping maw of the black hole. 

\----

“Still tumbling down the stairs, I see.”

The hem of a grey dress brushed over his arm as she stepped past him. He sat up and turned to watch Joan Redfern take a seat on the hard wooden bench in the hard wooden hallway. Sunlight through a high window played across the wall and highlighted the stray hairs that escaped her bun. She regarded him impassively, a worn leather volume clutched in her hands.

He stood and brushed off his suit. “I guess I am.” 

“When will you learn?”

He shrugged. “Are you here to teach me a lesson?”

Her expression remained empty of emotion. “You’re the teacher. I’m the nurse.”

“Yes, but neither a cat nor a nun. Let’s just stop and rejoice at that fact, shall we?”

She frowned. “You speak nonsense. As usual.”

“Still have the journal, I see.” The Doctor took two long strides and joined her on the bench. 

She opened the journal and began slowly, reverently flipping the pages. “I read it over and over, but the end is always the same.”

“Should it change?”

“You tell me.” She sighed, stopping on the picture of Rose. “You couldn’t remember the name of the blue box but you remembered her name well enough.” Her fingers caressed the face on the page.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep him alive for you.”

“No you aren’t,” she said, sounding annoyed. She met his gaze. “What was on the pages you tore out?” 

He looked down to see the jagged edges of two pages sticking out of the spine of the journal. “I don’t remember.” 

“I know you don’t.” She pulled two crumpled pieces of paper from her apron pocket and smoothed them out on top of the journal. “How could you remember?”

The Doctor took the pages and stared at them. They were covered completely with writing, block lettering of the same words over and over. BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF.

“I didn’t write this,” he said faintly.

“No? Then she must’ve.”

“Who?”

Joan laughed. “Don’t be stupid.” She stood up, brushing off her skirt. “It’s time for you to go now. You’re still keeping her waiting. You always keep her waiting.” She waved him towards a door at the end of the hall. 

The Doctor ran.

\----

“Oh,” he said, skidding to a halt as he entered the room. “It’s you.”

“Who else would it be?” asked Reinette, gliding across the shiny floor. She was lighting candles, the yellow glow of the room gradually increasing.

“No one.”

“Not no one.” She smiled. “Some girls are the type you dance with, and some are the type you marry.”

“I don’t do either.”

Her tinkling laughter echoed off the high ceiling. “Now I know that’s not true. You danced with me, and you danced with her.” She swayed up to him, putting her hands on his shoulders and her lips to his ear. “And you said,” she whispered, “ ‘How long are you going to stay with me?’ ” Reinette pulled away from him and looked into his eyes, her face full of pity. “And she said …” she prompted.

The Doctor closed his eyes. “ ‘Forever.’ ”

Reinette shook her head sadly. “Did you believe her?”

“I wanted to.”

“Because it had the power of a vow,” she said, wheeling away from him again. “She pledged herself to you again and again.” Reinette’s voice went low. “And you liked it. She belonged to you.”

“You make it sound so dirty.”

“Well, given time, perhaps it would’ve been.” She chuckled. “Did you learn nothing from your stroll inside my mind? I know lots of tricks. I could show them to you.”

The Doctor flushed. “I have no doubt of that.” 

“She wanted you. You knew it, you saw it in her eyes, read it on her lips, smelled it on her skin. Yet you never acted on it. Never once.”

“I couldn’t. She was so young.” The Doctor began pacing the floor, averting his eyes from Reinette in her shimmering dress.

“Aren’t we all, compared to you? What does it matter?” Reinette walked over to him, her back straight, and held out her hand. “Dance with me now,” she said, her lips quirking into a slight smile.

“You do mean dance, right?” he asked, “Because I’m never sure when dance means dance and when dance means … ” 

“Sex?” She laughed at him again. “On some level it always means sex.” Reinette waggled her fingers at him invitingly. The Doctor took her hand and began to lead her in a slow waltz. They were silent for a few minutes, gliding around the room.

“You realize there’s no music?” he asked, glancing down into her upturned face.

“Are you sure about that?”

“None that I can dance to.”

Reinette stopped moving and raised an eyebrow. “For someone so clever you can be fairly dense.” 

“Can I?” he said, acutely aware of his hand on the back of her waist.

She dropped his other hand and backed away. “I can’t stay any longer. The king is waiting.” She stopped when she reached the door. “Good luck, Doctor.” Reinette turned and fled.

The Doctor glanced around until his eyes lit on the fireplace. “There it is!” he shouted happily. Stepping up onto the hearth, he pulled the lever.

\----

“Oh, god! Yes, oh, _yes_! oh, fu—” 

“Well,” the Doctor drawled, “I could’ve gone my whole life without seeing that.” From the fireplace he had a good vantage point for viewing the rumpled bed, where Jack and another man engaged in aggressive sex. They both turned to look at him simultaneously; then, with a mutual groan, they separated. The younger man rolled off of Jack and stood up on the opposite side of the bed, stretching and strolling over to a large wardrobe.

“Doctor.” Jack smiled lazily at him, pulling a sheet up to his waist.

“Captain.” The Doctor inclined his head, leaning against the hearth. “Who’s your friend?”

“You haven’t met me yet,” replied the young man as he pulled a fresh suit out of the wardrobe and began to dress. 

“This is Ianto,” said Jack, lounging in the bed.

“He likes me because I’m a lord of time,” smiled Ianto.

“No you aren’t,” replied the Doctor.

“Well, close enough,” said Ianto.

Jack stretched. “If dreaming about cigars and tunnels symbolizes sex, Doctor, what does it mean when you dream about sex?” 

“I think it means that I find you entirely predictable, Jack.” The Doctor moved over to sit at the foot of the bed, his head in his hands. “Let’s get this bit over with and I’ll be going, yeah?”

“Why do you think you’re here?” 

The Doctor shook his head. “For impenetrable riddles, I’m sure.”

“Doctor, what is it you need?”

“I need …” He looked up at Jack. “I need to know why my mind can’t let go of her.”

Jack tilted his head to one side and examined the Doctor. “What makes you think it should?”

“Because otherwise all I have to look forward to is several more centuries of making everyone around me miserable.”

“Really? Are you sure?” Jack asked. “You don’t think that there might be another reason? Are you so bound by your own belief in what’s impossible that you can’t, even for a moment –” Jack threw up his hands, frustrated. “Ianto, what do we do with him?”

“You know the answer, Jack.” Ianto tightened his tie expertly. “I’m going to make the coffee.” He picked a gun up off the nightstand and cocked it. Holding it in front of his body stiff-armed, he left the room.

Jack turned to the Doctor. “I know someone who can help you.” He gestured at the door. “She’s through there.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Of course she is.” He got up and shuffled toward the door. “Jack, next time wear some clothes, would you?”

\----

He found himself in a sumptuously decorated tea room, all red velvet walls and gold trim and warm lighting. All the tables were empty save one, where a young girl in an ivory dress and pinafore sat silent. The Doctor scrubbed a hand through his hair, groaning. “A creepy little girl, Jack? Really?” he muttered.

She tilted her head and eyed him with an inscrutable expression. “Do you want to see what the cards hold for you, Doctor?”

“No.” He sighed, then plopped down in the chair across from her, tilting backwards and crossing his arms. “Make it quick.”

She rolled her eyes and flipped over the first card, “The Lovers.” The second, “The Sun.” The third, “The Wolf.” 

His chair legs plunked back to the floor. “Okay, first of all, there is no Tarot card called ‘The Wolf.’ You, or rather, I, just made that up. Second, I already knew that this was about Rose before I walked through that door. I don’t need this nonsense symbolism to figure that out.” He got up from the table and headed toward the door that led to the street.

“She is returning, Doctor.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He left the tea room 

\----

and ran into Rose on the pavement outside.

“Oof,” she said, stumbling backwards.

“Rose.” He grabbed her before she could fall. “I’ve got you.”

She smiled sadly. “Hello.”

“Hello,” he gasped. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“No,” she responded, “but I’ve been looking for you.”

“Have you?”

She nodded. “Bad wolf here, bad wolf there. It’s a message. It was always a message. It saw what was coming, and it gave me a way back.” Her smile was heartbreakingly sweet. “But you have to help me.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I just know that I can’t get to you on my own.” She reached up and touched his face gently, and he couldn’t help but close his eyes and lean into her hand. “I miss you.”

“Oh, Rose, if you knew …”

“There you go, wasting time again.” Rose sighed. “It’s time to wake up, Doctor.”

“What? Rose, no, wait!” he shouted as his eyes opened on the inside of the TARDIS.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's an annotated version of this chapter [here.](http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=21913)
> 
> I will admit freely to ~~stealing from~~ an homage to the brilliant _Buffy_ episode “Restless” in this chapter. In “Restless”, Xander crosses from room to room, encountering seemingly unrelated spaces as the Doctor does here.
> 
> Some of the ideas I’m playing with here are things that are debated frequently in fandom: were the Doctor and Rose too cavalier in S2, is their age gap relevant. While my answers to these are no and no, respectively, I still like playing with the idea that the Doctor himself might fret about this in the recesses of his mind. In other words, opinions expressed by the Doctor’s subconscious do not reflect those of the editors.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donna learns about Bad Wolf

“Well, you look like hell.”

The Doctor squinted at Donna, who stood at the kitchen counter spreading marmalade on toast while she regarded him appraisingly. “What?”

“I said, you look like hell. I don’t care if you are a bloody Time Lord, you have to sleep eventually.”

“I did.” He shuffled over to her, scrubbing a hand through his already dishevelled hair. “Is there more toast?”

Donna sighed and popped two more pieces of bread into the contraption that the Doctor called a toaster. She had laughed quite long and hard the first time she heard him term it that, but now she had to admit that it did make a fine piece of toast. “You slept? Well, fat lot of good that did. You look worse than before, if that’s possible.”

“Thank you, Donna. Your praise of my appearance is, as always, an ego boost.”

“You’re the last person that needs an ego boost, mate.” She gave him a small smile. “I take it the sleep wasn’t restful.”

His laughed without humour. “You could say that.”

Donna poured him a cup of tea and passed him the sugar bowl and milk. “Bad dream?”

He waved off her question. “Yes, but don’t ask me to describe it, we’d be here until next Thursday. It was all creepy little girls and dead people and wolf symbolism.” He dumped three rather large spoonfuls of sugar into his mug and poured milk. Stirring, he added, “and one part that I may need to have surgically removed from my brain involving Captain Jack and a sex act which I shan’t describe.”

Donna’s eyebrows went up. “I can hardly imagine,” she remarked, laughing and throwing the Doctor’s toast on a plate and handing it over along with the marmalade. “What do you mean, wolf symbolism?”

He frowned. “Bad Wolf. It was a … thing.” He plopped down at the table and began slathering entirely too much marmalade onto his toast.

“A thing? What thing?” Donna finished fixing her own tea and joined him.

The Doctor let out an enormous, put-upon sigh. Donna had learned that if she could get him past this point, he would usually start talking about whatever it was he didn’t want to talk about. This time was no exception.

“Back when Jack was travelling with Rose and me, we ended up 200,000 years in the future on a space station, facing up against a fleet of Daleks led by the Dalek Emperor.”

“The Daleks? The ones from the Time War that caused the death of your people? Those Daleks?” Donna’s biggest triumph, as far as conversations that the Doctor really would prefer not to have went, was getting him to tell her about the Time War. It had started with an innocent question about the Doctor’s species and had ended with the heart-wrenching story of what the Doctor had done to end the war. 

“Those Daleks,” he confirmed. “Things looked grim.” The Doctor stopped talking and Donna waited, figuring that “grim” was probably an understatement. Finally he resumed. “I sent Rose back home in the TARDIS. Well, when I say sent her home, I should make it clear that I didn’t really give her any choice in the matter. But the most important thing for me at that point was keeping her safe. That was going to be it for me, I wasn’t going to make it out alive. But I could save her, so I sent her away.” He smiled, a far off look in his eye. “She wouldn’t accept it, though, so she did something that no one should ever do. She opened the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the Time Vortex.”

Donna’s brow furrowed. “You lost me.”

Following some of his trademark violent eye rubbing, the Doctor responded. “I don’t know if there’s any way I can do justice to what she did. She became … she became something else. A creature of unimaginable knowledge and power. The Bad Wolf. But she was still, at heart, Rose. A human. She came back to me in the TARDIS, and she … ended it.”

Donna frowned. “Ended what?”

“The Time War. She turned the Dalek Emperor and the entire Dalek fleet to dust.” He took a sip of his tea. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Why do you call her Bad Wolf?” 

“She named herself that. The Bad Wolf created itself, in a way. The name came from the corporation that owned the space station, but she scattered the name in time and space as a message … to herself. That is, to Rose. To let Rose know that she could come back.”

Donna rubbed her temples. “Let me get this straight. The Bad Wolf, which is Rose, left a message to herself so that she would know that she could create … herself.”

“That would be the gist of it, yeah.”

“This time travel thing makes my head hurt sometimes.” She sighed. “So I don’t understand. She became this powerful creature, but she didn’t stay that way? What happened after she dusted the Daleks?”

“The power was too much for her. It was killing her, burning her from the inside out. So I took the power out of her, absorbed it. Put it back in the TARDIS, but not before it did a number on me.”

Donna started slightly and smacked the table. “Oh, is that when you regenerated? You said you had done something to save Rose. Was that the time?”

“Yup.” That was another conversation that she had had to drag out of him, kicking and screaming. In the end, she hadn’t really gotten much detail about past regenerations, only the basics of the process itself. That if he was injured badly enough, he might appear to turn into a different person. That she shouldn’t be alarmed if it happened and that she certainly shouldn’t fret that he wasn’t really the Doctor. Donna suggested that they have a code phrase that he could say to her if he regenerated so that she could be sure it was him. After a half hour of arguing they had settled on “The rabid stoat loves marzipan.” He had suggested “The angels have the phone box,” after which he had to explain where that had come from, after which she had pointed out that if they ever ran into the Weeping Angels, he might actually have cause to use that phrase, so it wasn’t a good idea. 

The Doctor pushed away from the table sluggishly and got up from his chair, carrying his plate and cup to the sink. “So, anyway, where shall we go this morning, eh? Fancy a trip into the past, perhaps?”

“I don’t know, but I do know that you promised to teach me to drive this thing today,” Donna responded smugly, finishing her tea.

“Wha?” He coughed and sputtered a bit. “ … erm, what?”

Donna smiled a threateningly sweet smile, following him with her own dirty dishes. “Last night, sunshine. I asked if you would teach me to drive the TARDIS, and you said yes.”

“I never did!” he squeaked, his eyes like saucers.

“Oh, you are _such_ a liar!” Giving him an only partially playful shove, Donna proceeded to point a finger in his face. “Don’t you go back on your word now, alien boy. If you get hurt or killed or your hands chopped off, I am not going to be stuck on some alien planet 4000 years in the future or in some time before toilets. Which is what I said to you last night when you weren’t listening, and isn’t it just too bad that you weren’t, because now you’re stuck. You said yes.”

The Doctor let out an exasperated breath. “Donna, even if I did say yes, which I am not admitting to, piloting the TARDIS is not something I can just teach. It’s not like driving a car. It takes all of my concentration sometimes and I have quite a lot of concentration to start with.”

“Sounds like it may take a while then! The sooner we get started on the first lesson, the better,” she pronounced, then grabbed his hand and dragged him from the kitchen.

 

***

Then came the call from Martha, and ATMOS and the Sontarans and Luke Rattigan. And after the world was saved, Donna went home one last time to say goodbye to her mum and grandfather. The TARDIS was parked at a Tesco’s a few streets away because even the Lord of Time had to pick up bananas and milk and eggs occasionally. After a tearful farewell, Donna walked slowly down the street. She was happy to be with the Doctor, to be travelling with him, but her heart ached as she left home behind. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she was living a dangerous life now, and any goodbye could be her last. 

As Donna turned the corner at the end of her block, she felt a prickle on the back of her neck, sort of like a thunderstorm was approaching. Looking up and finding the sky clear, she stopped and turned around, wondering what it was that was making her feel so strange. She prepared to run; with the Doctor, strange more often than not meant it was time to run for your life. All she saw was a young woman, standing about ten yards away and looking off into the distance. The woman swung her head around and glanced in Donna’s direction.

Several thoughts clicked for Donna almost simultaneously. The first was that this was the woman from the night she found the Doctor, the woman whom she had told about the car keys. Her face hadn’t really registered consciously at the time, just a vague impression of young and blonde, but seeing her again, it was clearly the same woman. The second thought that followed immediately afterwards was that this woman was Rose. This was the woman from the dog-eared pictures that he had shown her, filled with equal parts pride and sadness as he did so. The third was that the Doctor would probably kill her when he found out that she had seen Rose that night and not known it was her, and then not remembered Rose when she saw the pictures later. The fourth was that he probably would forget to kill her, being distracted by the fact that Rose was here. She was _here_. Donna ran to her.

“Oh. My. God!” Donna screamed, grabbing Rose’s hand. It felt strange, substantial but not, almost like something about it was flickering, vibrating. Donna held on tightly as Rose started to jerk her hand away in confusion. “Wait, please wait. You’re Rose. Rose Tyler.”

Rose’s eyes flashed with fear. “You know me?”

Donna grinned, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. “I know the Doctor! I’ve seen pictures of you, he talks about you … ” Donna gestured sort of wildly with her free hand. “ _He_ is going to be absolutely over the moon! I mean, look at you! Here! Come on, the TARDIS is just two blocks away!” She started to pull Rose in the direction she’d been walking, but Rose didn’t move. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t.” Rose shook her head and met Donna’s eyes imploringly. “You can’t tell him yet.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You can’t tell him yet that you’ve seen me.”

“You have _got_ to be kidding me. Not tell him that I was standing right here talking to the love of his life? If you think that I’m going to hide that, you are crazier than I thought. And trust me, you with him, I already thought you were a nutter.” Donna was still gripping Rose’s hand, or thought she was. But at that moment, she realized that she wasn’t. Looking down, she saw that while she could still see her hand, it had become translucent and she could no longer feel it. Panicking, Donna looked again at Rose’s face and realized that she was entirely translucent, that she could see through her. Rose was fading away. 

“Listen,” Rose said quickly, “I don’t have long, maybe thirty seconds, so you have to listen. I’m not supposed to be here, not in this universe, and especially not in this time. I can’t interfere with the events that are about to happen, and if I saw him, if he saw me, it would change everything. You understand paradoxes? If you know the Doctor, you must understand something about time paradoxes. About events that are fixed and can’t be changed. Please, I’m begging you, _please_ don’t tell him.” Rose’s voice broke on the last.

Donna felt her eyes burn as tears rose behind them. “But … he misses you so much.” Rose gasped faintly, an almost half-sob, and Donna rushed on. “He still loves you, he never stopped. You have to –”

“That’s why you can’t tell him. Promise me –” Before she could finish, Rose vanished. Donna found herself staring at nothing on an ordinary pavement on an ordinary day, blinking away tears. She wasn't sure how long she stood there, transfixed. Eventually she turned and continued walking slowly in the direction of the TARDIS, carefully running a finger under each eye with a shaking hand.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donna struggles with her knowledge.

She almost told him. 

Walking back to the TARDIS, she had composed herself and reasoned through everything that Rose had said. It was insane, completely insane, but it also made a certain kind of sense. If Rose was out of her time somehow and knew what was coming, then it was possible that her presence might cause a paradox. Donna had seen enough and argued with the Doctor enough that she sort of understood that, as much as anyone could. So as she walked, she dried her tears and squared her shoulders and prepared herself not to tell him.

But then she went through the doors of the TARDIS and looked him in the eyes, and she decided to tell him anyway. 

He was the Time Lord, not her. He was the one who could sense things, the turn of the Earth, what was fixed, what wasn’t. He would know better than to create a paradox, even for Rose. She would tell him, and he could do with the information what he needed to. As soon as Martha left, as soon as they were alone together, she would sit him down and she would tell him everything. 

Of course, with the Doctor, things never quite go as planned.

 

***

They floated in the Vortex. Well, Donna liked to think of it as floating, but it wasn’t really floating. She didn’t know what it was; a kind of stasis? They hadn’t landed anywhere since they left Martha behind two days ago, after the disastrous events on Messaline. She wasn’t sure what he was waiting for. She hadn’t seen much of him, if she was honest. He had found excuses to putter around in deep recesses of the TARDIS that she wasn’t familiar with, and Donna figured that after Jenny, he wanted to be alone. She couldn’t blame him, but she wished he wouldn’t -- wouldn’t withdraw, wouldn’t distance himself. 

She remembered what he’d said about the hole inside him left by the loss of his people and the pain that filled it, and she felt responsible. She had convinced him to care for Jenny. She had pushed him into loving her, and what good had it done? And now she was contemplating ripping open yet another old wound, possibly to no purpose. What if Rose never could come back? What if he managed to see her the way Donna had seen her, there and then gone again? Would that be a comfort, or yet another form of exquisite torture? 

Donna sat on the floor of the console room, her head back against one of the organic columns, turning the problem over and over in her mind. If she didn’t tell him, and it turned out that he could’ve done something to get Rose back, she would never forgive herself. If he found out that she had seen Rose and not told him, he would never forgive _her_. But if she did tell him, what could he do? He could either do something, and potentially destroy the universe in the process, or he could sit and do nothing, and slowly go insane with the knowledge that Rose was so close and he couldn’t get at her. She knew that the Doctor imagined that Rose had gotten on with her life. He had said as much once, making a flip remark about Rose having a husband now, a false grin plastered on his face. What if Donna told him that she hadn’t? It had been impossible to miss the look on Rose’s face when she’d told her that the Doctor still missed her, still loved her. It was clearly mutual. But was it better for the Doctor to know that, or worse?

When he emerged into the console room a half hour later and asked Donna if she wanted tea, she got up and followed him to the kitchen. But she kept her mouth shut.

 

***

“What did you mean, parallel Earth?”

Two days later they still hadn’t moved. The Doctor had explained that the TARDIS needed to recover from their unplanned trip to Messaline, which Donna accepted without comment. They sat together over breakfast, both inside their own heads, when Donna finally burst out with her question before she could really think it through or stop herself.

The Doctor slowly dragged his gaze away from the wall behind Donna’s head and focused on Donna herself. “What?”

Donna realized that her question had come out of nowhere; they hadn’t talked about this in weeks. “You said Rose was on a parallel Earth. What does that mean?” 

“Why are you asking me about this now?”

“I don’t know, it just … popped into my head.”

He sighed heavily and launched into a lecture. “Every choice we make, everything that happens that goes one way when it could have gone another, creates a parallel world. Parallel worlds might be so different from our universe as to be unrecognisable. Or they might be mostly the same, except that the Hindenburg disaster never happened or that Great Britain has a president instead of a prime minister. Or that people who died in our world may not have died in a parallel one.”

“And you can just travel between them?”

“No. Not unless there’s a hole in the void between worlds. Ordinarily, no.”

“How did she get there?”

“Donna I don’t really want to …” He sighed. “We were sealing the breach between the two universes. She fell. The walls closed.”

“So break through the wall and go get her.”

“It’s impossible.”

“Maybe it isn’t.”

“Don’t you think I tried? In the weeks between the day I lost her and the day I said goodbye to her, I did nothing else! I didn’t sleep, I hardly ate, I did nothing but try to find a way through to her that wouldn’t shatter both universes. There was no way. There is no breach any more. Even sending her the projection that I did was very hard, and in retrospect, fairly dangerous.”

“But, there must be some way—”

He stood up and spoke to her a voice that was steely calm and in its way, terrifying. “I see what you’re doing. I know you want to help, after … But this isn’t the way. So I’m going to ask you to drop it now.” He stalked out of the room. 

 

***

 

A week later, he was finally ready to move on, to go somewhere new. One morning he breezed into the console room, all nervous energy and babbling about a moon where creatures swam through the air like schools of fish.

“You changed your suit,” she remarked from her vantage point on the floor, where she had been leaning against one of the pillars and working a Sudoku puzzle.

He glanced down at the brown pinstripes. “Yeah, I got tired of the blue for now.”

“I like the brown better. Although maybe that’s just because it’s the way you looked when I met you.”

“Nah,” he said, shrugging. “Martha said the same thing.”

“What about Rose?” she asked, her voice sounding overly loud in her ears.

He looked up from the controls, frowning slightly. “I didn’t have the blue one back then.” He laughed a tiny laugh. “The first time I wore the brown suit was that Christmas, from the picture. And she said I looked, um, dashing, I think it was? And handsome. I’m pretty sure she said handsome. So I figured, why mess with a good thing?”

Donna just stared at him, and she could see the Doctor frown slightly in response to that. He had been expecting her to laugh and to make fun of him, she realized. She did neither. Instead, after ten days of waffling and agonizing, Donna finally made a decision.

“Doctor?”

“Yes, Donna?”

She stood up. “I want to go see Captain Jack.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Donna go to Cardiff.

Jack Harkness doesn’t sleep.

But sometimes, in the afterglow, when he’s warm and sated, he does doze a little. It isn’t sleep exactly, but a sort of half-sleep, trancelike state. And on even rarer occasions, when he’s not-quite-sleeping, he dreams.

\----

He was on board the TARDIS, standing in the console room. The pulsing time rotor cast everything in a greenish glow. He walked slowly around the empty space, his boots clanking on the grating. The thrum of the TARDIS vibrated low in his belly, reminding him of some of the best and worst times of his long, long life. 

An attractive woman with long, red hair entered the room and ducked around the time rotor. She stopped when she saw him and frowned.

“You’re Jack.” She appeared to be sizing him up.

Smiling his best smile, Jack held out a hand. “Captain Jack Harkness.”

She smirked and crossed her arms over her chest. “He told me you’d say that.”

Jack’s smile faltered and he dropped his hand uselessly to his side. “You have me at a disadvantage. You know who I am, but I don’t know you. And you definitely look like someone I should know.”

“I’m Donna.” She laughed and shook her head. “And does that line ever work?”

“On occasion.” Jack took a moment to look around the room. “Where is he?”

“He’s still lost, Jack.”

“Shouldn’t we do something?”

She nodded. “We will, don’t worry.” Donna smiled a small, sad smile. “I’m not the one you need to be talking to though.” She cocked her thumb in the direction of the time rotor.

He looked over to see Rose slowly circling the console, trailing a hand along the controls. She was in some ways just as he remembered her, and in others impossibly different. She looked older, as if she had grown into her face. She was much more beautiful than he remembered, and it was almost unbearable. Jack carefully approached her, as he would a frightened animal. For some reason, he fully expected her to disappear at any moment. “Rose?” he whispered.

She looked up, startled, then smiled a huge smile. “Jack. I knew I’d get through to you eventually.”

“Get through to me?”

“I thought he was difficult to catch sleeping, but he’s got nothing on you.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “What did I do to you, Jack?”

He reached out and touched her shoulder. “Nothing bad, sweetheart. It’s all good, I promise.”

“I have to tell you this, it’s important. You have to help him. The two of you together, you can do anything. Anything you set your minds to.”

“What do you need us to do, Rose?” 

She smiled and took his hand. Her hand felt small and cold in his own. “I need you to help me get back.”

Jack awoke suddenly, surprised as he always was when he found he had slept. He looked over and saw Ianto, shadowed and sleeping, his back rising and falling slowly. Jack got out of bed, dressed silently as he often did, and left the flat. 

 

***

 

The Doctor frowned at Donna. Of all the things he expected she might say, that wasn’t among them. “Captain Jack? Why?”

Donna huffed, sounding annoyed. “Do I need a reason? He’s your friend, he’s attractive. I want to meet him.”

The Doctor glanced down at the console. “I’m not sure if ‘friend’ is the word I would use.”

“Why do you say that?”

He sighed. “My relationship with Jack is complicated.” Looking up at Donna, he continued, careful to keep his face impassive. “After the Game Station, Jack and I didn’t part under the best of circumstances. We got past it, we helped save the world together, everything’s fine now, just … not sure how happy he’ll be to see me.” He started hurriedly adjusting the TARDIS controls. “But it’s fine! Let’s go meet Jack! Cardiff! I could stand to refuel anyway.”

“Great!” chirped Donna. It sounded strange, forced. Not unlike most of the things she’d said to him lately. Since the Sontaran invasion things between them had been odd, and he was at a loss to explain why. The Doctor was anxious to make Donna happy, and if a visit with Jack Harkness would make her happy, then he would visit with Jack Harkness. He would just ignore the creeping heebie-jeebies that being in a room with Jack caused him. For Donna’s sake. 

“By the way, Donna, be careful with any designs you might have on Jack. He isn’t exactly a one-woman man. Or a one-man man for that matter.”

“Oi! I don’t have _designs_ on anyone.” She crossed her arms across her chest, frowning. “Wait, what do you mean, you mean he’s bisexual?”

“At least.”

“You might not believe this, Doctor, but some women find that sexy. The thought of a man with another man.” 

He raised his eyebrow and looked at her. “Whatever you say.” What Donna thought about two men together was really not information that he wanted. He adjusted a few more knobs and switches and flipped the main control lever. The TARDIS lurched.

She smirked at him. “Why, were you and he … together? Is that why it’s complicated?”

“ _What?_ No! No.” He sniffed. “Of course, he did fancy me. This me _and_ the last me.”

“You think everyone fancies you.”

“I do not!”

It was Donna’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Whatever you say.” The TARDIS shuddered to a halt, and Donna grabbed the edge of the console to keep from tumbling over.

“Here we are, Cardiff!” he announced. Grabbing his coat, the Doctor headed for the door. “Also, he can’t die,” he added in a ridiculously offhand manner.

“What?” Donna said, following him. “What do you mean, can’t die?”

“Jack. He’s … well, he’s essentially immortal. Whenever he does die, it doesn’t take. Also, he works for a secret organization called Torchwood which, among other things, monitors a rift through time and space which runs through Cardiff.”

Donna shook her head. “Is there anyone that you know who’s just normal?”

“Doubtful,” he said, smiling widely.

They stepped out onto Roald Dahl Plass, where a light rain was falling. The Doctor looked around, slightly nonplussed. “Now, I think … um … huh.” 

“What?”

“I don’t actually know where to find him. Last time I was here, he found me.” He started, snapping his fingers. “But!” He pulled out the sonic screwdriver and bleeped it around a bit. “Yes, that way.”

“What, you can detect immortal bisexuals with that?”

“No,” he said with exaggerated patience, “but Torchwood is packed full of things with all kinds of strange energy signatures. They stick out like a sore thumb, actually.” Taking her arm, the Doctor led Donna across the Plass and to a very shabby, nondescript tourist office. Once inside, they found the office empty. The Doctor rang the bell impatiently, then turned around to face Donna, his elbows propped on the counter. “I could tell you some stories about Cardiff. Did I ever tell you about the Slitheen?” Donna shook her head. “The Slitheen were a crime family from the planet Raxacoricofallapotorius. Not to be mistaken for its sister planet, Clom. Now, Cardiff wasn’t the first time that I met the Slith—”

“Can I help you?”

The Doctor turned around and came face to face with a man from his dreams. Which was not at all the same thing as the man _of_ his dreams, because that would be something completely different, and this regeneration wasn’t really partial to men in that way anyway, and … oh dear, he thought. It was never a good sign when he started rambling inside his own head. 

“Uh … hello!” he said brightly, and realized that he was blushing. Which was ridiculous. It just wasn’t every day that you ran into someone whom you’d had an inappropriate dream about and whom you also had, as far as you knew, never laid eyes on before in your life, he reasoned. It was disconcerting.

At his pause, Donna took over. “I’m Donna Noble. This is the Doctor. We’re here to see Jack Harkness. And you are?” she asked, holding out her hand.

The well-dressed young man nodded to the Doctor. “I recognize you from the files.” Then he politely took Donna’s hand and shook it, smiling at her. “Nice to meet you, I’m Ianto Jones.”

The Doctor cleared his throat. “Sorry. What did you say your name was?” He kept smiling awkwardly.

“Ianto Jones, sir.”

“Now, that is just _weird_ ,” the Doctor muttered.

“No,” Ianto responded evenly, “it’s Welsh.”

Donna gave the Doctor one of those you’re-being-rude looks that all of his companions mastered after a time, and he turned his smile on her, his eyes wide to signal something, although he wasn’t sure what. Then he turned back to Ianto. “Course it is. Beautiful language, Welsh. So!” he said in what he hoped passed for an enthusiastic voice, “Lead on, Mr. Jones! Let’s see this place properly!”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donna and Jack have a conversation.

Donna had to admit to being a little intimidated as the huge metal door rotated open, all flashing yellow lights and alarms like something out of a James Bond baddie’s secret lair. She and the Doctor, who was behaving very strangely even for him, followed Ianto through the hatch into a cavernous space. Donna gazed around. It looked like someone had taken the set for the show _Spooks_ , combined it with parts of the TARDIS, and plunked it down in a sewer. A relatively clean sewer, sure, but a sewer nonetheless. 

The Doctor was already pulling out his specs and trotting over to a huge column on one side of the room which reminded Donna of the time rotor from the TARDIS console, although it was motionless and dark. Ianto followed closely on the Doctor’s heels, looking uneasy. Before Donna could react or follow them herself, she was approached by a dark-haired woman in a black T-shirt and jeans who appeared to be whispering into a communications device in her ear.

“Hello,” she said, while at the same time glancing up toward a bank of glass-walled offices on a higher level. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know we were expecting any visitors.” She looked over at Ianto and the Doctor nervously. “Ianto?”

He shrugged at her from where the Doctor was crouched in front of the column. “This is the Doctor, and Jack said he was to be given full access if and when he ever turned up.”

“Did he?” the Doctor asked, squinting up at Ianto. “Well, that was nice of him.” He stood up, brushing off his trousers. “And where is old Jack, hmm?”

“I’m Donna Noble, by the way,” Donna said, extending a hand to the woman at her side. 

“Gwen Cooper.” Gwen smiled and took Donna’s hand, still looking a little anxious. 

“Judging by this place, I’m guessing that you don’t often get visitors in off the street, do you? Don’t worry, the Doctor and I won’t give away any of your secrets.”

Before Gwen could respond, a booming voice shouted down from the upper level, “Well, look what the cat dragged in!” Jack Harkness bounded down, laughing, as the Doctor walked to meet him. He held out a hand which Jack grabbed and used to pull the Doctor into a bear hug. The Doctor good-naturedly hugged him back.

Jack was, Donna had to admit, even more handsome in person. He had a whole retro-World War II look working for him, with the braces and military trousers and boots. He wore a dark blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing strong forearms. His accent was American. “So, in town to refuel?” Jack asked, stepping back and looking the Doctor up and down. Donna didn’t miss the warmth of Jack’s gaze and had to grudgingly admit to herself that in this case, the Doctor was probably right. Jack did fancy him.

“Among other things,” the Doctor replied. “Jack, this is Donna Noble. She’s been travelling with me of late.”

Jack swung his megawatt smile around and aimed it at her, but as soon as their eyes met, the smile disappeared and his eyes went wide. She approached him, holding out her hand. “Hello, Jack, it’s nice to finally meet you, the Doctor’s told me so much about you.”

“Right, hello,” he said, taking her hand. His smile returned but didn’t meet his eyes. “Sorry, have we met before?”

Donna shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Huh. OK.” Jack seemed to shake himself, then returned to his earlier joviality. “Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones, this is the Doctor, and … Donna Noble, you said?” She nodded. 

Now that they were here, Donna wasn’t quite sure how to manage things. She needed to talk to Jack alone, but obviously she would need to be subtle about it, which was going to present a challenge, she thought.

“Well, I’d love to stay around and chat,” Gwen said, “but I’m going to be late for lunch with Rhys if I don’t leave right now.” She grabbed a handbag from one of the desks and dashed toward the hatch. “See you folks later?” 

“Doctor, I bet you’d like to have a look at some of the alien artefacts in our archives. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff that comes through the rift.” Jack threw one arm around the Doctor’s shoulders and the other around Ianto’s and started walking them away. “Ianto, why don’t you give him the full tour?”

Or, Donna thought, perhaps it wouldn’t be challenging at all. 

After Ianto and the Doctor had disappeared, Jack returned to her, his hands in his pockets. “Sorry if I was rude a minute ago. Seeing you threw me a little.”

“Why would that be?” Donna asked.

“Because I dreamed you last night.”

“You what?”

“I know, sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But there it is. I dreamed I was on the TARDIS, and you were there and so was … so was Rose.”

Donna’s jaw dropped and she took a step backwards. “Okay, this is getting beyond weird. Is there somewhere we can sit down and talk? Because that’s actually the real reason we’re here, although the Doctor doesn’t know it. I need to talk to you about Rose.”

What Jack thought of that was impossible to read from his face. Without saying another word, he directed Donna up to his office. He motioned her to a chair as he collapsed behind his desk. “Why come see me?” He sounded edgy.

She shrugged. “I couldn’t think of anyone else. I know you travelled with them both back in the day, and he’s implied that you did a little bit of time travelling on your own before that. I thought you might know what to do.” Donna felt her eyes burning again with unshed tears. “This is driving me completely round the bend, I’m sorry. I need someone to help.”

Jack’s expression softened. “I’ll do what I can. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

“You know what happened to Rose?”

“Only that she’s trapped in a parallel world.”

“Yeah, exactly, except I saw her.”

“You had a dream about her too,” Jack said, sitting up straighter.

“No. I mean I _saw_ her. On the street. Twice actually, although the first time I didn’t know who she was. By the second time, he had shown me pictures and I recognized her. And I spoke to her, it was definitely her.”

“I don’t get it. If she’s here in this universe—”

“She wasn’t _here_ here, not exactly. It’s like she was flickering, like she was partly here and partly not. And after just a couple of minutes she disappeared. I mean literally vanished, right in front of my face.”

“Well, what did the Doctor say?”

“That’s just it! She told me not to tell him. She said if I told him she was here that it would create a paradox. Implication being that it would destroy the universe, or both universes. She begged me not to tell him, even after …”

“After what?”

Donna sighed. “Jack, he misses her so much. It’s like sometimes, I think he manages to forget her for a little while and he’s really happy, and sometimes it’s like her memory weighs on him like a millstone. As if he doesn’t have enough weighing him down, with memories of the Time War, and I know that bothers him more than he likes to admit. But it’s like …” she paused, trying to figure out how to put it into words. “It’s like when he talks about things that happened with Rose, for a moment there’s this lightness to him. Like that was a time in his life when being the last of the Time Lords was something he hardly thought about, because he was too busy being happy. You know what I mean?”

Jack nodded, his face wistful. “Yeah, I do know. I saw it.”

“I know he’s been through a lot since then, and you were with him for some of that. So I’m not naïve enough to think that it’s all about Rose or that Rose would make everything better. But …” And now she did cry, remembering his words to her on Messaline, remembering Jenny. “If he could just not lose one thing, in all the universe of things that he’s lost, just _one thing_. He saves the world again and again, and the world just keeps taking and taking until he’s got nothing left.” She took a trembling breath, accepting a handkerchief that Jack offered her and drying her eyes. “And I can’t bear this. I can’t bear looking into those old, sad eyes any more and carrying this burden of knowledge on my own. I can’t.” 

Jack leaned forward across the desk. “You won’t have to. I’ll help you. I promise.”

“He’s still so lost, Jack.”

Jack looked suddenly alarmed. “That’s what you said to me in the dream.”

“What?”

“You said he’s still lost.” He thought for a minute. “And then Rose… _Rose_ said that I needed to help him get her back.”

Donna frowned. “He’s been dreaming too. Well, first he wasn’t sleeping. He went, like, a month without sleeping, and I know Time Lords hardly ever sleep, but a month? Then when he finally did sleep it was nothing but dreams that left him just as tired.”

“What happened in his dreams?”

“He wouldn’t tell me much, at least not details.” Then she laughed, “except he did mention something about you and sex.”

Jack’s eyebrows went up. “Really? That’s … promising.”

“Stop it.” Donna stood up and paced around. “Do you think it’s related? Do you think the dreams are important?”

“I wouldn’t, except that I saw you plain as day, you even said your name was Donna, and I’m fairly certain that we’ve never met. So how do you explain that?”

 

***

 

“Are you sure we’ve never met?” the Doctor asked, looking up from his examination of a 46th-century … well, he was fairly certain it was a sex toy. Either that or a kitchen utensil, he wasn’t sure. He flipped the switch on it again, making it buzz and vibrate. He shrugged. Perhaps it was both. Multifunctional. He regarded Ianto over the top of his glasses and set the kitchen utensil/vibrator aside.

Ianto smiled a tight smile. “I learned about you in Torchwood orientation, Doctor. I would remember if I had met you.”

“Torchwood orientation? Was that here with Jack?”

Ianto shook his head. “No, at Torchwood One in London.”

The Doctor’s eyes grew wide. “Torchwood London? Were you at the Battle of Canary Wharf?”

Ianto nodded.

“Well, that’s brilliant!” Off Ianto’s look, the Doctor quickly corrected course. “I don’t mean brilliant, I mean terrible, sad, tragic. But I was there, so I must’ve seen you.”

“I was a low-level research associate, relegated to the archives. I was out of the way for most of it, it’s how I avoided …” Ianto gestured vaguely, leaving the sentence unfinished.

“It’s how you avoided being cyberized,” the Doctor finished, “like most everyone else you worked with.” Ianto nodded, his eyes averted. “I’m sorry.”

Ianto looked up at him. “It was a long time ago, I’ve dealt with it. Anyway, I never saw you.”

“No?” the Doctor frowned. “Maybe you were on one of those Employee of the Month plaques?” Ianto laughed and shook his head. “No? Sounds like something that Yvonne Hartmann might’ve had, Torchwood Employee of the Month!” He tracked his hand in the air across the words on his imaginary plaque. Then shrugged. “Well, there must be a scientific explanation for it,” he muttered.

“For what?”

The Doctor looked at him, then waved him off. “Doesn’t matter.” He brushed his dusty hands off on his jacket. “This is all quite fascinating, and notably harmless.” The Doctor grinned a dangerous grin. “Where’s the good stuff?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the help of Donna and Jack, the Doctor and Rose move toward reunion.

“Jack, do you realize that you have a 150th-century oscillating plasma grenade in your archives? Do you even have a tiny clue how dangerous those are?” The Doctor stormed into Jack’s office, Ianto trailing behind him. 

Jack shrugged. “It’s no big deal, I disabled it.”

“Yes, but what if someone were to _enable_ it, hmm? Ever think of that? No, of course not, it’s Torchwood. You’re all, ‘what could possibly go wrong?’” He threw up his hands and flopped down in the other chair across from Jack’s desk, putting his feet up.

Jack didn’t bother to dignify that with a response. He could talk himself blue in the face about the good they did now, but the events of Canary Wharf made it a guarantee that he and the Doctor would never see eye to eye on Torchwood, even in its current incarnation. Jack glanced at Donna, wondering if he should take his clue from her on how to begin. He found her face unreadable, so he looked to Ianto instead. “Ianto, could you order us lunch in? We have some things to discuss, the three of us, and it may be a while.”

Ianto raised an eyebrow and regarded Jack for a beat, but all he said was, “Chinese?” Jack nodded and Ianto ducked out with no further comment. 

The Doctor cocked an eyebrow at Jack and steepled his fingers. “We have things to discuss? Do tell.”

Jack looked to Donna. “Jack, I think you should tell him about your dream first,” Donna said.

With a sigh, Jack stood up and began pacing behind his desk. “I don’t sleep often; it’s a side effect of the immortality. I dream even less. But last night, I had a dream that I was on the TARDIS. And in the dream was Donna. I’ve never met Donna before today, never seen her before in my life. But there she was in my dream, on the TARDIS, talking to me.”

The Doctor stood up slowly. “You’re telling me that you dreamed of someone that you’ve never met.”

“Yes, and that’s not the only—”

“Doctor, what is it?” Donna said, interrupting Jack. 

“But that’s just …” The Doctor looked between Donna and Jack. “The same thing happened to me. I mean, not … That is, I dreamed about Ianto. Well, about a lot of people, but Ianto was one of them. And I’ve never …”

“Doctor, can I ask you something?” Jack approached him cautiously. “Was Rose in your dream?”

As Jack watched, something shifted in the Doctor’s eyes, from confusion to fear to longing. “Why?”

“Because she was in mine.” Jack sat down on the edge of his desk. “She looked older. And she said that I needed to help you get her back.”

The Doctor’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “It’s impossible,” he whispered roughly. “There’s no way to get her back. I tried.”

“You didn’t answer my question, Doctor. Was Rose in your dream?”

After a few seconds, the Doctor nodded.

“And what did she say?”

The Doctor tried to pace the confines of the office, eventually coming to rest against one wall. “Look, it stands to reason that if I dream of Rose, she’s going to say something along the lines of ‘Help me get back.’ It’s wish-fulfilment on my part. Doesn’t mean anything.”

“How can it not mean anything?” Donna asked, exasperated. “You both dream of Rose. You both dream of people that the other one is close to, but that you yourself haven’t met. How do you explain that?”

The Doctor shook his head. “I don’t know. But—”

Jack interrupted him. “Doctor, could Rose be trying to contact us? If she’s found a way to psychically reach us when we’re asleep, then—”

“Jack, I’m telling you, it’s not possible! The breach between our world and hers is completely closed now! Nothing can pass between them. No thoughts, no dreams, no messages, nothing.”

Donna stood up and took a deep breath. “Doctor, there’s something else that I need to tell you.”

“Donna,” Jack said, stepping in front of her. “We discussed this—”

“I know we did, but I don’t care. How can he be expected to work this out, come up with a way to get her back, if he doesn’t have all the facts? It isn’t reasonable.” She stepped around Jack and took the Doctor’s hands. “There’s something else, something that I was asked to keep from you, but I think you need to know.” She took a deep breath. “Rose has been here, in this universe. I don’t mean just in dreams. I saw her twice, on the street.”

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?” he rasped, gripping her hands hard enough to hurt. Donna was suddenly quite terrified of him. 

“The first time was the night that I found you. I swear to you, I didn’t know who she was. When I went to get rid of the car keys, do you remember that? And I put them in a bin and I called my mum, and there was this woman, on the street there, and I told her to keep an eye out for Mum, and … I didn’t recognize her, I’d never seen Rose at that point. But remember when you showed me the pictures and she looked familiar? Now I realize that was why.”

He jerked his hands from hers and backed up. “And the second time?” he choked out.

“It was after everything with the Sontarans was over. I was on my way back to the TARDIS, and there was this prickle, like a lightening storm, except there was no storm. And I turned around, and there she was. Except this time, I recognized her. I knew it was Rose. So I ran up to her. And she said …” Donna trailed off.

“What, Donna? What did she say?” He shouted the last, and Donna flinched.

“You have to understand, she was only there for a couple of minutes, then she vanished. Just vanished. But she said I couldn’t tell you that I’d seen her. That it would cause a paradox. She said that she was out of her own time and that if I told you she was there, it would create a time paradox. She begged me not to tell you, so I didn’t. But it’s been killing me, and I figure, you’re a Time Lord, you can work out whether something’s going to cause a paradox on your own, right?” He was just staring into space. “Doctor, please, I’m sorry. Please.”

He wrenched his gaze back to her. “It’s not your fault, Donna.”

“So it is possible,” Jack said, trying to get them back on track. “Even if we don’t understand it at this point, _somehow_ she’s found a way to temporarily project herself into our universe, although who knows how much control she has over the process.”

The Doctor fell into the nearest chair and put his head in his hands. “That explains it,” he said quietly.

“Explains what?” asked Jack.

“Explains why since that night, I’ve been …” He looked up at the ceiling and Jack could see the sheen of tears in his eyes. “I was so close to her. She was around the corner from me. Around the corner, Jack,” he said desperately, hands grasping at nothing.

Donna sat next to him and grabbed one of the Doctor’s hands. “We’ll figure something out, yeah? She just needs your help, your help and Jack’s help and we’ll figure out what to do and we’ll get her back.”

“Doctor, is there anything else from your dream that might be useful?” Jack felt like he kept having to drag the Doctor and Donna back to the problem at hand. 

He shook his head, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t know.”

“Well, you told me that there was a lot of stuff about Bad Wolf, right?” Donna asked, desperate to get the Doctor thinking productively.

The Doctor frowned. “She said it was always a message. It was a message to her before, showing her how to get back to me, but what if it’s a message even now? If the Bad Wolf created a pathway between universes, one that even I can’t see … It just might be possible. If we are very, very lucky.”

“Now you’re talking!” Donna crowed, clapping him on the back. 

“I don’t know.” He turned to Donna. “I think maybe she was right. Maybe you shouldn’t have told me.”

“Why not?” Donna whispered.

“Because now there is no power on this Earth that can stop me.”

 

*** 

 

Rose glanced at the data downloading into the Torchwood-issue mobile phone she carried. September 20, 2073. It was the latest date she had ever been carried to. She looked at her surroundings; she seemed to be in a monitoring station of some kind. A man in a red beret and a black military uniform sat at a bank of screens. He didn’t notice Rose and wasn’t likely to; his head was pillowed on his arms and he snored loudly, an untouched cup of cold coffee next to him on the desk. The CCTV monitors showed mostly empty rooms. In fact, all of them were empty save one, where two people appeared to be arguing. A middle-aged man with dark, longish hair pulled into a pony tail at the base of his neck paced around a small room. A younger woman with a short-cropped hair cut sat on a cot. She wore a T-shirt and baggy trousers. She had one foot up on the cot and rested her head against her knee. Carefully, so as not to wake the soldier, Rose reached over and tweaked the volume knob below the monitor. 

“You heard me!’ the woman was saying. “You should’ve let me handle it. We wouldn’t be in this cell if you’d let me handle it!”

“Jenny, I think I know how to deal with UNIT,” the man scoffed.

“Well, obviously not,” Jenny replied, and Rose could see her eye roll even on the grainy monitor. “I’ve been dealing with this situation for months. You think you can just breeze in here with your proclamations and your ‘There is no higher authority, because I’m the Doctor,’ and people will just heed you. It’s not going to work like that, not this time.”

Rose took a step backward, her hand coming up to her mouth. It was the Doctor. And if this was the Jenny she’d already seen, that meant this wasn’t an earlier regeneration of the Doctor, this was a later one. Tears came to her eyes, and she blinked them away angrily. There was no reason to cry, of course he was going to regenerate again eventually. Still, she couldn’t help that old feeling resurfacing that her Doctor had died.

“Jenny, you are very young. Regenerated or not, you have still lived about one tenth of the time that I have. Don’t think I have nothing to teach you.”

The woman softened. “I know you do, Dad.” She smiled. “But you are out of practice with this, you’ve been on sabbatical for 25 years.”

“That,” he retorted, “is neither here nor there.”

She got up from her seated position and approached him, putting a hand on his arm. “I know you want to throw yourself back into your old life now that …” She didn’t finish the sentence.

He shook his head angrily. “That’s not what this is about.”

“Dad, of course it is. I don’t blame you, I'd do the same. Just, you know, give me some credit that in this particular situation, I might have an idea worth listening to, all right?” She hugged him, and after a pause he hugged her back.

“Fine.” 

“Like the new look by the way,” she said, smiling.

“New new Doctor,” he said, then grimaced. 

“The pony tail is interesting. Kinda sexy I guess, if you’re into that sort of thing.”

He snorted. “I don’t care about that,” he said airily.

She gave him another squeeze. “I bet _she_ would’ve thought so.”

The Doctor looked at Jenny with surprise. Before Rose could hear his response, she felt herself shift, and in the next breath was looking out the front window in her flat. As she watched, a zeppelin floated by in the sky outside.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose has her own journal of impossible things.

The first time it happened, two and a half years after she slipped off the lever, it never occurred to her that it wasn’t a dream.

Rose had woken early, in spite of the fact that it was a Sunday and she had nowhere to go. It was late summer, and sunlight was streaming through her living room window. She made a cup of coffee and sat down on the sofa. There was a clarity and calmness to an early morning when you didn’t particularly have anything to do, and she closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun on her face and listening to the hum of the building. Rose had found that after years on the TARDIS, she was sometimes hyper-aware of the hum of her surroundings, of the electricity, the energy that underlay everything. She concentrated on it, smelling the freshly brewed coffee and a hint of the carpet cleaner she had used last week. Then, with no warning, she … shifted.

Rose opened her eyes. She stood on a perfectly recognizable street corner in London. Looking down, she was horrified to see that she was standing on a street corner in London in her pyjamas. And she was surrounded by people, but none of them paid her any attention; they were running and shouting and pointing. When her gaze followed theirs, her heart stopped. She was looking at Big Ben. Big Ben with a huge chunk taken out of it, pieces of glass and masonry still falling from the jagged scar.

She looked up at the sky. A clear blue sky full of clouds and decidedly empty of zeppelins looked back. Rose Tyler almost jumped for joy. She whirled around, thinking to run, trying to remember where she and the Doctor had been at this moment, worrying about the paradox of running into herself, deciding that she didn’t care, and instead finding herself on the sofa in her flat in the next breath.

It had all been a dream, she realized immediately. A vivid dream, yes, but a dream nonetheless. She had just dozed off on the sofa.

The second time it happened, she was in her office at Torchwood with Jake sitting across from her, giving an update on recent weevil activity. Rose closed her eyes, exhausted; she had been sleeping poorly. Soon, she was startled to feel cool air on her face. She opened her eyes and found she was looking across a dark street at a large building, faux-column façade on the lower level, glass and chrome on the upper level, the words “Lazarus Laboratories” emblazoned above the columns. People were milling around outside, an air of distress about them. As she watched, a middle-aged woman in a sparkly, formal dress stamped her foot, arguing with a young man in a dinner jacket. She couldn’t make out what they were saying until the woman raised her voice. “That’s no excuse! My daughters used to have more sense, Leo!” The man shrugged and tried to put a hand on her shoulder which she shook off. Two police cars raced past, sirens screaming. Rose started to cross the street. Before she got halfway across, she shifted and was looking at Jake again.

Jake was standing up, his laptop computer having hit the floor. “Rose, what the hell!”

“What?”

“You just vanished for a few seconds!”

 

***

 

After that, her life changed. She was examined by Torchwood doctors. She was questioned at length by Pete. She began to entertain the idea that the first time, with Big Ben, was not a dream. They gave her a special mobile phone so that if it happened again, the phone would immediately download as much data as possible from any available wireless networks. And Rose started to keep a journal.

 

> __
> 
> 1.  
>  Date: April ??, 2005 (can’t remember the date exactly)  
>  Location: London, near Parliament  
>  What I saw: Big Ben, it looked like right after the spaceship hit it. The one that the Slitheen were using as a distraction.  
>  Connection to the Doctor: He and I were in London that day, would’ve been trying to get close to the crash site at that moment.

__

> 2.  
>  Date: Unknown (clothes make it late-20th, early-21st century, maybe?)  
>  Location: London??  
>  What I saw: A place called Lazarus Laboratories, a lot of people in formal dress outside, a woman and man arguing. Man’s name Leo, maybe her son? She said something about daughters?  
>  Connection to the Doctor: ???

 

Rose wondered if she could do it on purpose. She started practising meditation. For several weeks, nothing came of it. Then one evening, sitting on the floor of her flat, breathing deeply, eyes closed, thinking of nothing in particular, she found herself again in another world. 

 

__

> _3._  
>  Date: June 30, 2007 (data from phone)  
>  Location: Cambridge, England (data from GPS)  
>  Other information: The President of the U.S. was recently assassinated. The Prime Minister disappeared, presumed dead.  
>  What I saw: A young woman running across a quad carrying flowers. She stops an older woman (professor?), says, “Just to say, I don’t blame you.” She runs off.  
>  Connection to the Doctor: ???

> __
> 
> 4.  
>  Date: November 18, 2029  
>  Location: Cardiff, Wales  
>  What I saw: As soon as I shifted, a woman started talking to me. She was in her 30s, blonde, pretty. She knew me, called me by my name, it was like she knew that I would be there. Said her name was Jenny, that the Doctor was her father. Said that if I appeared in London any time before June 2008, that I had to avoid the Doctor. That if the Doctor realized I was there, it would change what he did and that she (Jenny) would never exist. That it would be a paradox.  
>  Connection to the Doctor: The Doctor’s daughter??!?

> __
> 
> 5.  
>  Date: April 5, 2008  
>  Location: London, England  
>  What I saw: An office park, big building with sign that said “Adipose Industries”. Chaos in streets, alien spaceship in the sky, lots of police. A woman came up to me and said something about looking for someone named Sylvia and something about a rubbish bin.  
>  Connection to the Doctor: ???

Rose’s mother turned up at her office one afternoon and offered to take her to lunch. As soon as they sat down and ordered, Jackie pounced.

“Is it the Doctor then? Is he making this happen to you?”

“I don’t think so, Mum. It doesn’t always seem connected to him. Once, maybe twice.” Rose shrugged. “I don’t know why it’s happening.”

“But it’s definitely our universe? The one we came from, I mean?”

“As best as we can tell. Mickey’s been sifting through the data, and yeah, it seems consistent with our universe.”

Jackie took a piece of bread from the basket in the middle of the table and tore it in half. “What if you go there one of these days and you can’t get back?”

Rose shrugged. “What if I do?”

Jackie looked up at her, alarmed. “After all this time, you still _want_ to go back?”

“I had sort of stopped thinking about it. But yeah, I guess I do.”

“But Rose, darling, look at everything you have here! You did your A-levels, you have a great job, a nice flat, a nice boyfriend—”

“Robert is _not_ my boyfriend,” Rose replied quickly.

“Oh? What is he then?” Jackie asked, her eyes narrowing.

 _Friend with benefits? Booty call?_ Rose said nothing.

Jackie shook her head. “And you have your family, Rose. You have me and Pete. You have your little sister, Lily.”

“I know that,” Rose said quietly. “And I love you, I do.”

“And in spite of all that, you’d go back. You don’t even know if he’s alive. There’s no guarantee you’d find him again.”

“I know.”

Jackie reached over and took Rose’s hand. “If you go. Rose, if you can …” Their eyes met across the table. “Say goodbye to us first.”

 

> __
> 
> 6.  
>  Date: September 20, 2073  
>  Location: (GPS data was blocked by UNIT jamming frequency)  
>  What I saw: Man and woman on CCTV, in a UNIT detention cell. Seemed to be later regenerations of the Doctor and Jenny. They argued, the Doctor was stubborn and his usual self. Jenny was frustrated. The Doctor had been on sabbatical (?) for 25 years. He seemed sad.  
>  Connection to the Doctor: covered above

_  
_

 

She wanted to write more, but she couldn’t bring herself to put the words down on paper. She had done the maths. She would be 87 in 2073. It was a ludicrous fantasy, to imagine that she had lived her entire life with him. That she had had forever. She capped her pen and put the journal away.

> _7._  
>  Date: May 3, 2008  
>  Location: Chiswick, London  
>  What I saw: A woman ran up to me, knew my name, knew the Doctor. (Same woman as in #5, above.) Wanted me to come with her to the TARDIS. I told her no, I couldn’t, told her about the paradox. Told her not to tell him.  
>  Connection to the Doctor: This woman likely the Doctor’s companion(?) 

Again, there was more she wanted to write, but the details felt too intimate to commit to paper. She had said he missed her, that he still loved her. The shock of it was not just imagining him feeling this way, it was imagining the Doctor confiding his feelings to this woman. Rose could hardly fathom it. Perhaps she had been guessing, surmising, assuming he had feelings that he didn’t. Still, the words affected her, and she spent an hour crying.

That evening, Robert called her for a date and she told him she was too sick to go out.

> _8.  
>  Date: July 12, 2012  
>  Location: Bayswater, London_

She was in a bedroom. Somewhere downstairs, a doorbell rang. Footsteps. A door opened.

“Oh my god, isn’t it just like you to show up on my doorstep with no warning!” A woman’s voice, familiar, and then laughter.

“Well you know me, Donna. Like to keep people on their toes.” It was _his_ voice. Rose edged closer to the door. “Actually, I can’t stay, there’s another version of me here, so it’s a bit dodgy, stopping by. In fact, I should have called. That would’ve made sense, to call. With a phone. Ah, well.”

“What are you rabbiting on about?”

“Ah, just … you weren’t planning on going to the Opening Ceremonies tonight, were you?”

The woman snorted. “No, why?”

“No reason. Well, there’s going to be a thing. People disappear, but it turns out all right in the end. Still, best to keep your distance. Make sure you watch on telly, though. Especially the torch lighting.” Rose thought she could almost hear his cheeky wink. She smiled at the memory.

“Where’s your better half, then?”

“On the TARDIS. Where I should be getting back to before I inadvertently cause a paradox and bring Reapers down on our heads. Ugh. Nasty.”

“Next time stop by for a longer visit, would you, you ridiculous alien?”

Before Rose could hear any more, she shifted back. She began to pace her apartment. She was jumping around in the Doctor’s timeline, seemingly randomly. Sometimes she was there only a few seconds, sometimes minutes. There was nothing to indicate that she was getting any closer to crossing over to that universe permanently. Rose kicked the end of the sofa. There had to be something more she could do. 

She snapped her fingers. Maybe there was. After all, the last tiny hole in the universe hadn’t been here in London. Perhaps her physical location in this universe was irrelevant, but she was going to go mad if things continued on this way, she had to try it. Scrambling for her phone, she called the airline while she started to rip open drawers and throw things into bags. Several hours later, she was on her way to Norway.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose dreams.

She found a cottage on the bay that she could rent for as long as she wanted. It was autumn, and the weather had turned cold. No one was on holiday this time of year. 

Now that she was here, on Bad Wolf Bay, she had no idea what to do. She tried meditating to get herself to shift into the other universe, but she was too agitated to make it work properly. After a salad from ingredients picked up at the local market and about two-thirds of a bottle of wine, Rose dragged herself to bed. 

She dreamed of a voice.

A golden voice, if a sound could be described as golden. It spoke, and she listened.

“The time has come, Rose.” Rose was looking out of the observation deck of a space station. In front of her, the Earth burned. She turned around, looking for the source of the voice, but all she saw was a flicker of gold, always at the edge of her vision, always just out of sight.

“Time for what?” she finally asked.

“Time to go,” the voice answered simply.

“Why now?”

“It was too soon before. Events had to follow their proper course.”

“What events?”

In answer, images flashed in front of Rose’s eyes. She saw the dark-skinned woman from Cambridge, the one with the flowers. She wore a white lab coat and stood over an operating table, preparing to cut into the corpse of a man with a gunshot wound in his chest. She saw the Doctor, sitting on the floor and rocking back and forth, clutching a man she didn’t know, keening with grief. She saw Captain Jack running through Cardiff with a backpack. She saw the ginger-haired woman from Chiswick hitting a short, heavily-armoured creature on the back of the neck with a mallet. She saw a spaceship careening out of the sky toward Buckingham Palace and then, at the last moment, veering upward into the sky again. She saw the Doctor pull his arm from a mechanical contraption and examine a cut on the top of his hand. The images flashed faster and faster until they were a blur. Rose cowered under the onslaught. Finally, the images stopped.

The voice came again. “We saw all of that and more, once. Now it is time.”

“What do I do?”

“You reach out to them. Jack. The Doctor. Together, they will help you.”

“How?”

“I will show you.” There was a rushing sensation, and suddenly she was looking into the console room of the TARDIS. She wasn’t there, it wasn’t like one of her trips into the other universe. It was more like floating above everything, looking at it through a filter. As she watched, the woman whom she had presumed to be the Doctor’s companion got up from the captain’s chair, yawned, and waved to the Doctor, who had part of the floor under the console ripped up and was surrounded with wires, the sonic screwdriver in his mouth. He waved back absently and continued to work as his companion left the room. “Eventually he will tire and rest, and you can reach him. You can touch his mind.” Rose wanted to just watch for a bit, but the rushing came again and her vision blurred and darkened.

When her sight cleared, she was looking down on the surface of a lighted bar in a trendy nightspot. Jack sat at the bar next to a younger man, both of them laughing and drinking pints of beer. As Rose watched, Jack leaned over and kissed the other man on the neck, more silly than seductive, and they laughed some more.

Rose’s eyes filled with tears. “How can it be Jack? We left him, I thought … I thought he died. In the future, I assumed he died.”

“He did. We made him live.” Visions flashed before her eyes again. All of them Jack, so many memories, so many _years_. So many deaths, none of them permanent. Rose wept silently. “He too will sleep eventually. You will reach out to him too. Together, they will bring you back.”

 

*** 

 

During the day, she took long walks and read books and watched TV. She went to sleep early and woke late, but it was eight days before she reached the Doctor. 

Her first sensation could hardly be described as touch or sight or smell, yet she was somehow completely aware of him, of his mind, next to her own. It was like being in an electrical storm, and Rose struggled to keep her bearings. She reached out tentatively and touched him and she felt him react. There was no recognition on his part, or if there was he was denying it with every power he had. She tentatively pressed against him again, searching for a way in, but was continuously buffeted back. He was dreaming, Rose could sense it, but it was violent, disjointed, and strange. Mentally, she took a deep breath and concentrated, with single-minded intensity, on making him aware that she was there. Finally, she felt something give, the smallest crack in his mental armour, and she cautiously slipped into his mind.

The Doctor came crashing out through the door of a shop and ran into her, making her lose her balance. She started to fall backwards but she felt his hands gripping her upper arms, steadying her on her feet. “Rose,” he said, and the sound of his voice almost made her stumble again, or would have if the encounter had been real. “I’ve got you.”

“Hello,” she said, and couldn’t help but smile at the tender look on his face.

“Hello,” he gasped. “I’ve been looking for you.” He looked older, she noticed. The little crinkly lines around his eyes that she used to see when he smiled were more evident. He seemed sunken, more worn, more tired than she remembered.

“No,” she responded, “but I’ve been looking for you.”

“Have you?”

She nodded. “Bad wolf here, bad wolf there. It’s a message. It was always a message. It saw what was coming, and it gave me a way back. But you have to help me.”

“How?” He searched her eyes, and she wished fervently that she could tell him something concrete, something simple.

“I don’t know. I just know that I can’t get to you on my own.” She reached up and touched his face, and she watched, transfixed, as he closed his eyes and leaned into her hand. “I miss you,” she said.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, swallowing. “Oh, Rose, if you knew …” He paused. Before she could respond, she felt that rushing sensation. She gasped, sitting up in bed, her breath coming shallow and fast. 

 

*** 

 

“Rose, when are you coming home? You’ve been there for two weeks!” Jackie’s voice sounded thin and frightened. Rose held the mobile to her ear as she walked down the beach, her exposed fingers quickly numbing in the cold.

“I don’t know, Mum.”

“Well, what could you possibly be doing there, darling? What is this accomplishing?”

“It’s hard to explain, Mum, but … I reached him. I spoke to the Doctor … sort of, anyway.” 

“You _spoke_ to him? Oh, Rose.”

“Sort of. Look, mum, I should go.”

“Rose, I don’t want to lose you.” Jackie sounded desperate and Rose stopped walking, her eyes squeezing closed.

“Mum …” There was nothing that she could say to her mother that would comfort her. The fact was that if she could return home (and how had she not realized that she never stopped thinking of it as home?), then she would. “I love you. Give my love to Pete and Lily, okay? I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“I love you, too, darling, always. Don’t forget that.”

 

*** 

 

It was another week before she reached Jack.

Where the Doctor had been an almost overwhelming swirl of strange yet familiar sensations, Jack was a warm, steady presence. When she pressed herself against his consciousness, it was easy to slip inside.

She was standing on the TARDIS, and she almost wept at the familiar feeling of being in the place she still secretly thought of as home. She reached out and tentatively touched the console, trembling at the flood of memories that came rushing in. Her eyes raked over everything, drinking it in, and she circled the console slowly, touching the knobs and switches. She was so focused on the TARDIS that she didn’t remember Jack until he spoke to her.

“Rose?” His voice was soft, almost a whisper.

Rose examined him, and his familiarity brought a smile to her face. If he was older than the last time she’d seen him, she couldn’t tell it. “Jack. I knew I’d get through to you eventually.”

“Get through to me?”

“I thought he was difficult to catch sleeping, but he’s got nothing on you.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “What did I do to you, Jack?” The scenes she’d seen in her dream and the things that the Bad Wolf had said echoed in her memory, filling her with guilt. 

He reached out and touched her shoulder, smiling his best Jack smile. “Nothing bad, sweetheart. It’s all good, I promise.”

Rose shook her head to clear it and hurried on. “I have to tell you this, it’s important. You have to help him. The two of you together, you can do anything. Anything you set your minds to.”

“What do you need us to do, Rose?” 

She took his hand. “I need you to help me get back.” 

 

***

 

The following night, as soon as she fell asleep, Rose felt the Doctor’s presence again. She pressed gently against his mind and before she could take a breath, felt his arms around her. “I was hoping I’d find you here,” he whispered close to her ear. 

She shivered in response. “Is it really you?”

“As much me as it can be, meeting you in a dream.” He pulled away from her slightly. “Donna told me about seeing you.”

Rose nodded. “I think it’s okay now. It’s time, or so I’ve been told.”

“Rose, I need to know the commonality of the times that you’ve crossed over into this universe.”

“Several times it seemed to relate to you somehow, like when I met Donna. Other times, I’m not sure. I didn’t recognize anyone, or I didn’t understand what I was seeing.”

The Doctor brought his hands up to either side of her face, but didn’t touch her. “If it’s all right with you, I’m going to look, see if I can see for myself.” He paused, waiting for her assent. Rose nodded, her heart pounding. She felt his fingers touch her temples gently and she closed her eyes, unable to keep a gasp from escaping her lips. “It’s okay, Rose, don’t worry. Just imagine yourself pushing those memories to the forefront of your mind. I won’t look at anything you don’t show me, I promise.”

She imagined each event as clearly as she could. It was easy to remember; she had written about them and then reread her journal a hundred times. The Doctor’s eyes darted back and forth rapidly under his eyelids as if he were speed reading the contents of her brain. Which, she supposed, he was.

The Doctor muttered to himself in half-sentences. “The day of the Slitheen attack, that’s easy … ooh, Professor Lazarus, interesting … Martha, that must be right after …” Suddenly he let go of Rose’s face, his eyes wide with alarm. “But that’s not possible. Jenny, she can’t be …”

“What?”

He shook his head. “We don’t have time, it’s just …” He replaced his hands. “I’ll worry about it later.”

Seeing Jenny, this woman who had claimed to be his daughter, had shocked him. Given everything he’d ever said about being the last of his kind, Rose was burning with curiosity, but she held it off. It occurred to her in a panic that he shouldn’t discover what she knew about the far future, when she had seen one of his later regenerations. She clamped down on that memory and shoved it as hard as she could to the back of her mind.

“The Adipose, right, Donna said … and then the second time, right after …” He paused a long time as she showed him her last memory, which was really just voices. “The Olympics? Why would I go back, seems rather reckless of me, doesn’t it?” The Doctor opened his eyes and dropped his hands. 

“What’s the verdict?” Rose asked nervously. 

“Where are you right now?” he asked.

“Where do you think?” she said with a nervous laugh. “Bad Wolf Bay.”

He laughed too, a thrilling, joyous sound. “My clever, clever Rose.” He took her hands, grinning from ear to ear. “I know what to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The section where Bad Wolf shows Rose several images of things that have happened since she got lost was inspired in part by the video by humansrsuperior, [All to Dust](http://humansrsuperior.livejournal.com/70415.html).


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plan is implemented.

Ianto glanced up from the coffee maker to see the Doctor barrelling into the Hub. He looked like a coiled spring, and as usual, just a wee bit mad. Whatever Ianto had expected of the man who had seduced Jack away a year ago, this squirrelly geek in pinstripes and reading glasses was not it. Donna dragged in behind him, looking angry and half-asleep. 

“Because it’s 6:45 in the bleeding morning, that’s why,” Donna was saying. “And you didn’t even give me a chance to eat anything!”

Ianto stepped forward. “Donna, if you like, I can show you to the kitchen. And I’d be happy to make you a coffee.”

“Bless you, you darling boy.” Donna shot another glare at the Doctor, but he had already taken a seat at one of the computers and was ignoring her completely. She followed Ianto. “Don’t give _him_ any coffee, he’s like a crazed ferret with too much caffeine. Well, _more_ like a crazed ferret.”

“He’s … an interesting person,” Ianto remarked impassively.

“Interesting, yeah, that’s the word for him. Also irritating, infuriating, idiotic … ” She laughed. “I’m not sure how he manages to be a 900-year-old Time Lord and be like an annoying little brother at the same time, but somehow, he does.”

“Donna, what is a Time Lord exactly? Jack never really explained.”

“Don’t know if I can, either. It’s his species, his people. Except he’s the only one left, so …” She shrugged. “He travels in time and space, he lives for hundreds of years, he saves planets … and he’s in love with a woman who’s trapped in a parallel universe.”

“Yeah, about that,” Ianto said as he looked into one of the cupboards. “Bagel all right with you?” Donna nodded. “That’s this Rose person that Jack was talking about?”

“That’s her. The Doctor was babbling so much this morning I couldn’t make out half of it, but I think he’s figured out how to get her back.” 

After she was fixed with a bagel and coffee, Donna and Ianto wandered back out into the main part of the hub. The Doctor was still at a computer, typing like mad, with Jack and a recently-arrived Gwen hovering behind him.

“And that’s when I realized, it’s not me she’s fixing on to. Well, not exactly me. It’s more the effect that I’m prone to have on the timeline. With a large enough sample size, she probably would have wound up in places and times that had nothing to do with me at all. Of course, I suppose most perturbations to the timeline on Earth probably do relate to me in some way.” He winked at Gwen. Ianto observed Gwen’s resulting flush and smile. He did have a strange sort of charisma, Ianto admitted to himself grudgingly.

“What are you going on about now?” Donna asked around a mouth full of bagel.

“Perturbations to the timeline. That’s what allowed her to get through. Every time she got through, there was some perturbation to the timeline. Right after the first widely-acknowledged alien spaceship crash on Earth. Right after Martha and I killed Lazarus. Donna, the two times you saw her were immediately after everything was resolved with the Adipose and the Sontarans, respectively. When the course of history is altered drastically enough, the fabric of reality, the fabric of space and time itself, has to shift. In that moment, there’s a weak point. I’m still not entirely sure why Rose can shift through from one universe to the other, but it must be something that she did as the Bad Wolf. She probably doesn’t even realize what it is, but it _is_ nonetheless.”

Donna turned to Gwen. “Just smile and nod in all the right places. Don’t expect it to make sense.”

The Doctor continued as if Donna hadn’t spoken, standing up and gesticulating wildly. “The point is, it’s a massive change in the timeline that’s the key. And what’s the largest change in the timeline that you can think of, Jack?”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “The year that never was.”

“The year that never was, exactly! If we can get her to come through right after that event, after we turned the clock back on that year, then we can bring her through permanently.”

“How?” Jack crossed his arms, seemingly unconvinced.

“With this!” the Doctor said, flinging one hand out to indicate the rift manipulator. He skipped across the room to it. “We can use your rift manipulator to make it all work! Where, when and how Rose comes through.”

Gwen was shaking her head. “No way. The last time we used that, you didn’t see what happened. It was a disaster.”

The Doctor just rolled his eyes and started climbing around the device, pulling out wires and examining them. “That’s because you didn’t have me. And because you apparently had trained monkeys assemble this. Do you realize you’ve got the temporal stabilizer routed directly into the rear rotary power coupling?” Specs on, sonic screwdriver buzzing, he went to work, all the while continuously muttering. Ianto heard him utter the word “monkeys” at least once or twice more.

 

*** 

 

“Hi, Mum.”

“Rose! I couldn’t reach you yesterday, I was worried!”

“My phone was just off, I’m fine.” Rose shifted from foot to foot, standing in the bedroom of the cabin. It was mid-morning, but the sun had just risen. The days were getting shorter and shorter.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?”

Rose could hardly get the words out. “Mum … I love you, please don’t ever forget that I love you.”

“Rose, what is it, what’s happening?”

“I’m going back. Today, if everything goes as planned.”

“Oh, God. Rose, are you sure? Are you really sure?” Rose could hear the tears in her mother’s voice and she felt horrible. It was happening again, she was leaving her mother for the Doctor and breaking her heart. Except this time it was forever.

“I’m sure. I don’t want to lose you. But I’m sure. My choice never changed, as it turns out. Even after all this time, it never changed.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Jackie finally cleared her throat. “Once you’re done kissing him, do me a favour and give him a slap for taking you away from me again, you hear me?”

Rose smiled, tears falling and hitting the carpet. “Okay, Mum.”

“And if there’s any way you can come back, even for a minute, just to visit—”

“I will. I promise.”

“I love you, my darling daughter. I always will. Do me proud. Help him save the universe a few times, okay?”

Rose laughed a watery laugh. “I’ll do that. Give my love to Pete … to Dad, and to Lily. Kiss Lily once every night for me. And don’t let her forget me, Mum.”

“Never. No one whose life has ever been touched by Rose Tyler can forget her. It’s not possible.”

“Goodbye, Mum.”

“Rose … ” Jackie seemed to want to keep her on the line, but there was nothing left that she could say. “Goodbye.”

 

*** 

 

“Easy peasy!” The Doctor clapped his hands together. He flipped a switch and the rift manipulator began to pulse up and down. “Everyone gather round, I’m going to show you how this is going to work. I’ve preprogrammed everything, made it as foolproof as possible, but you’ll have to control it from here and monitor the outputs.”

“And just where are _you_ going to be?” asked Donna.

“On the Valiant.” He looked at an imaginary wristwatch. “About … nine months ago.”

“Are you kidding?” Jack approached the Doctor and stood chest to chest with him. “Are you _trying_ to create a paradox? _You_ are already on the Valiant nine months ago. As am I.”

The Doctor waved Jack off, stepping back. “I can avoid myself, I’m not going to go into the control room. And you aren’t coming with me.” He looked at Donna. “No one is. I’m going by myself.”

Now it was Donna’s turn to challenge him. “Why?”

“Because it’s dangerous, I’m not denying that.” He looked at Jack again. “I’m going immediately after we turned the year back.”

“Right around the time the Master was shot,” Jack said.

“Yeah. Then.”

“You can’t change those events,” Jack warned.

“I wouldn’t. It’s the farthest thing from my mind. I’ll put the TARDIS down in the bowels of the ship. I’ll call you … Donna, give me your mobile,” he said, holding out a hand. She pulled it from a pocket and slapped it into his palm. “I’ll call you and tell you when to start the sequence. Rose is ready, I told her what to do. The manipulator will bring her through, I’ll say when and you’ll start the shutdown. We’ll get into the TARDIS and be back here before you can say ‘temporal paradox’.”

Ianto frowned. “How did you tell her what to do?”

The Doctor smiled. “I dreamed a little dream of her last night,” he said, waggling his eyebrows. 

 

*** 

 

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS into a poorly-lit hallway on the Valiant. It was empty. He walked until he found one of the omnipresent CCTV monitors and watched for a moment. The gunshot, when it came, made him flinch, and he looked away before he could see more. He pulled the mobile phone out of his pocket and made the call.

“Doctor?” It was Donna.

“I’m ready, Donna. Tell Jack to start the initiation sequence. Make sure the signal from this phone is locked in before he starts it.”

“Okay.” There was a pause and then her voice came again. “We’ve got your position. It’s started.”

And then suddenly there she was. Her image wavered, indicating that she was still not entirely in this universe, but she was real. Rose smiled, and for a moment he thought he might have to hold onto something to stay upright.

“Doctor.” Her smile widened. “I knew you’d find a way.”

“Always.” His breath caught. “Rose, always.”

“You look like a ghost.”

He flinched at those words, but put on a brave face. “So do you, actually.”

“I’m glad you still have the same face,” she said. 

“Yep, still the same me.” _Still yours_ , he didn’t add.

“Doctor, something’s wrong.” It was Jack’s voice. He could just barely hear it; he had dropped his hand when Rose appeared. He slowly brought the phone to his ear. 

“… the timeline,” Jack was saying, and as he said it the Doctor could feel it — threads unravelling and unravelling, changes he had made changing back. _A family destroyed by torture and servitude and a year wandering the Earth in exchange for salvation and forgiveness._ A year that never was. A year that was again. Or would be, if …

He looked at Rose, ghostly Rose. It was all going wrong. All of it for nothing. Less than nothing.

For a moment, he considered going through with it. If he could just get her, he’d worry about the planet later. He’d beat the Master once, he could do it again. 

But how much pain, how much suffering had happened in that year? Countless lives lost, countless lives in ruins. Except this time, it would be because of him. He would be as responsible as the Master. He would be no better than the Master. Perhaps worse; he wasn’t mad, at least, not entirely.

“Rose.” He swallowed, and it took every ounce of strength he had to say the next words. “Rose, we can’t do this. It’s affecting the timeline here. If we do this,” He shook his head. “If we do this, then the Master comes back. An entire year, a year in which the Earth was destroyed, comes back. And I can’t … I won’t let that happen.”

Her smile was brave. “Of course you won’t. You wouldn’t be my Doctor if you did.” 

Jack was shouting. “I have to let her go now, Doctor! If I don’t, there’ll be no going back!”

His hand holding the phone hardly shook. “Do it, Jack. Reverse it.”

“I can’t believe we’re doing this again,” Rose said with an almost-laugh.

He laughed too, although at what he couldn’t fathom. “It’s getting ridiculous, really.”

“Doctor—” And she was gone. He stared at the space she had almost occupied. 

Finally, he became aware of Jack calling his name over the phone. The Doctor turned on his heel and began walking back toward the TARDIS. “Yeah. I’m here.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you coming back now?”

He opened the door to the TARDIS, walked inside the door and stopped. “Soon. Something I need to take care of first.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donna has an idea.

The Master stared at him from across the console room.

The Doctor walked up to him. “You aren’t really here. You’re just an echo, an echo of that little wobble in the timeline I created. Of what I almost did.” He tilted his head and examined him. “Either that or I’m hallucinating.”

“Ooh, I hope it’s the latter, wouldn’t that be ever so much fun?” He walked over to the captain’s chair and flopped down, putting his feet on the controls. “You fucked this up royally, didn’t you?”

The Doctor leaned against the console. “I didn’t foresee all the consequences.”

“It was a rookie mistake. What sort of Time Lord are you, anyway?”

“Doesn’t really matter, does it? There’s no competition for the job.”

“Not at the moment, no.” 

The Doctor rubbed his hands over his face. What he wanted more than anything in that instant was to close his eyes and go to sleep for a long time. “I realized something about you recently.”

“What’s that, _Doctor_?” The Master steepled his fingers, smirking.

“I was wrong. What I said that day, it was wrong.”

“You were wrong to forgive me?”

The Doctor shook his head. “No. You did unspeakable things, and would have done more unspeakable things if you hadn’t been stopped. But I wasn’t wrong to forgive you. Forgiveness was never about you, it was about me.”

“Then what were you wrong about, pray tell?”

“I was wrong to want to keep you. I was wrong to not be glad to see you die.”

The Master pouted. “But now you’re all _alone_.”

“No, I’m not. I’m the last of the Time Lords. Not the same thing as being alone.”

“You failed to get her back though. Your _twue wuv_.” His head waggled from side to side and he giggled.

The Doctor nodded, ignoring the Master’s mockery. “But I’m still not alone. I was wrong to ever believe I was.”

“Isn’t that sweet,” said the Master.

Putting on his specs, the Doctor swung the computer screen round to his position at the console. He began typing and studying the results. “As I said, an echo. And I think it’s probably time to call an end to this, don’t you?” He pressed a few more buttons and the Master started to fade away.

The Master regarded his hands. “What I think is of no consequence, is it?”

“The fact that you’re here … You may be an echo, but you exist. Somewhere, somehow, you still exist.”

The Master smiled. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” He disappeared, leaving the Doctor alone in the TARDIS.

 

*** 

 

“It’s not fair.” Donna clutched one of the tissues that Ianto had handed her as she paced around the Hub. “It can’t just … end like that. It _can’t_. He can’t get that close and it just … not work. It’s cruel!” 

“Life is sometimes cruel, Donna,” Jack replied, shrugging.

She sat down on the couch. “Explain it to me again.”

“Donna, it’s not going to –” 

_“Explain it to me again.”_ Her voice was icy. 

Jack sighed. “The whole thing?”

“No, you don’t have to review the whole history of the Master and year that never was, I got that bit. I mean, what happened today?”

“When we opened the rift between the universes, it … it’s hard to explain. The timeline tried to heal itself. And when it did that, it ended up healing something that should’ve stayed broken. Namely, that lost year.”

“So if we had brought her through into that time, it would’ve brought back all of that stuff. The Master and all.”

“Yes. And that wasn’t a decision that the Doctor would’ve ever made.”

“No, of course it isn’t, it’s just … ” Donna rubbed her temples. “I feel like there’s something we’re missing here.” She stood up and paced again. “What if he tried again, but from some other location? Not that ship.”

“He said it had to be on the Valiant, near the focal point of the time effect, or there wouldn’t be enough power for it to work,” said Ianto.

“Okay, okay. Well, what about other times? Other times where something major happened, but a whole year wasn’t erased?”

“It was the fact that a whole year was erased that made it significant enough for it to work,” Jack retorted.

“Wait a minute. Haven’t we caused a … what did he call it? A perturbation of the timeline? Right here? Today? By using that rift thing the first time?”

“What do you mean?” Gwen asked.

“I mean, we perturbed the timeline a minute ago by using the rift manipulator! We did something that almost brought about a massive change in the timeline, and we did it in this time, in this place. We almost made a whole year exist that didn’t exist before. Right?”

“That’s true,” Ianto said.

“So why can’t we bring her through to this universe right here, right now?” Donna said, clapping her hands together.

Gwen put her hand on Donna’s arm. “Donna, we’ve just seen that these actions can have terrible consequences.”

“But that was there on the … Valiant or whatever. That might not happen now, in this time, where things are more stable. Right?”

“It might not,” Jack conceded.

“And if it does, we can just reverse it again, like you did before?”

Jack nodded. “Theoretically.”

Donna stood up and shooed at them all as if they were recalcitrant children. “Well what are you waiting for? Let’s do it!”

 

***

 

Rose sat on the edge of the bed, completely still. She had lost track entirely of how long she had been sitting there, staring into space. Numb was the only word for it, she was completely numb. She had considered calling her mum twice, to tell her that never mind, forget that tearful goodbye, as it turns out I’m not going anywhere. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it, not yet. The sun was already setting, bringing to a close the short Norwegian day. Maybe she should sleep, she thought. Maybe he could come to her again, and they could say yet another goodbye. It was all they ever did, they should be good at it. Maybe she should just stay in this cabin for the rest of her life, ghosting around the seaside Norwegian town during the day and meeting him at night when she slept. 

When that electric, tingling feeling started again, she thought she’d fallen asleep. But it didn’t feel like sleep. She stood up, and her vision started to melt and change, just like before. This time, the surroundings seemed different. As things clarified, she realized she wasn’t standing in front of the Doctor, but Donna, his companion.

“Rose?” Donna squinted.

“That’s me. What’s happening?”

“We’re trying again. Jack and his people and I, we’re trying again. It might not work, but this is a different place in the timeline than where the Doctor was before, so …” she held up crossed fingers and grinned. 

Then she heard Jack’s voice. “It looks OK, Donna. None of the warning signals that we got before. It’s stable.”

Donna looked back at Rose. “So far, so good. Hang in there.”

Rose looked around at the room she was standing in and realized she could barely see anything any more. Then there was a lurching feeling and she felt at once nauseated and dizzy. She leaned over, trying to get her bearings and not vomit up what little she’d eaten when she felt hands on her shoulders, pulling her upright.

“It’s okay, Rose, I’ve got you. You with us? Can you say something?”

Rose opened her eyes and looked directly into Jack’s. He was completely clear and in focus. Completely real. “Am I here?” was all she could think to say. 

“You seem to be, doll,” he said, leading her over to a couch and guiding her to sit down. 

Rose looked around, panicking. “Where is he? I need to see him, this never lasts long, I’ll disappear soon –” 

“You won’t, not this time,” Jack said soothingly, rubbing her back. “This trip is one-way. For which you can thank Torchwood, ironically enough.” He grinned a toothy grin.

“Oh my God, Jack –” She hugged him, and he was laughing and hugging her back. After a while Rose let go and looked around. Hovering nearby were Donna, another woman she didn’t know, and the young man that she’d seen Jack with in her dreams. But no Doctor.

“Where is he?” Rose asked again.

“He’ll be back soon.” Donna sat down on her other side and took her hand. “And I hope you don’t mind, but I need to hug you too.” Donna had tears in her eyes, and Rose was struck by how much she clearly cared about the Doctor, about his happiness. Rose smiled, and Donna grabbed her into a tight hug. “See? You’re still here and absolutely solid. Not going anywhere.”

Rose looked around again as Donna released her. “Where is here?”

 

***

 

He rematerialized inside the Torchwood hub. The Doctor felt like he didn’t have the energy to walk the short distance from his usual parking place. It was a slightly tricky manoeuvre, rematerializing underground, but he managed it. He dragged over to the doors. He would pick up Donna, say goodbye to Jack, and disappear into the Vortex. Then he could find one of the rooms in the TARDIS that Donna didn’t know about. Only at that point could he afford to fall apart. It would be such a relief to fall apart.

He heard laughter as he walked through the doors, and it seemed so incongruous that it sounded like an alien tongue. It took him a moment to even identify what it was. He looked around the lower level of the hub, but didn’t see anyone.

“Up here, Doctor.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunion.

The impossibility of that voice registered before he could drag his eyes up to the level where Jack’s office was. He really was hallucinating, he thought. Brilliant.

She stood against the railing. Had she ever been that beautiful, he wondered? His hallucination was taking liberties, that was certain. He watched, almost detached, as she walked down the stairs and approached. She stopped two paces away and tilted her head to the side, studying him.

“I wanted to say before, since when do you wear a blue suit?” Rose asked.

“Since … ” He looked down, and suddenly the detachment dropped away and clarity set in with a flash. Blood rushed in his ears. “Rose, are you real?”

She laughed. “A valid question. One I’ve been wondering a lot lately myself, actually. But yeah, I’m real.” She held out her hand to him. “See?”

He reached out and felt her warm, completely solid hand slip into his. He wondered idly if he might collapse to the floor. Strangely, his knees held up. _Well done, me_ , he thought.

In the next second she was in his arms. She overwhelmed his every sense. He could feel the soft pill of her jumper under his hands and the tickle of her hair against his neck. He breathed her scent and wondered how he had ever managed to breathe without her. He heard her make a little squeak, and realized with a shock that she had always made that sound when he hugged her hard. He had forgotten about that; how could he possibly have forgotten about that? The sound loosened something in his chest, a tightness he didn’t even realize he was carrying until it suddenly gave way. She was impossibly, impossibly real. 

“How?” His voice sounded strange to his ears.

“Ask Donna, she figured it out,” she said in a wavering voice and he realized she was crying. “They brought me through to this time, Donna and Jack and the others.” 

He ran a hand down the back of her head, smoothing her hair. “Are you okay? No ill effects from the trip?” He thought he should probably examine her, but that would require letting go and he was loathe to do that. 

“A little dizzy at first, but I’m fine now.”

He pulled away from her slightly so that he could see her face. “Rose, your family …”

“I made my choice. Same as ever.” She took a shaky breath. “Let’s talk about that later.”

He reached out and wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “Don’t cry now. Now’s not the time for crying, it’s the time for laughing. Also cheering, perhaps a small amount of jumping for joy. But no crying.”

“Jumping for joy?”

“Only a small amount,” he said, glancing up. “Wouldn’t want to make a scene in front of the audience.” Four faces peered back at him. “Donna, get down here!” He reluctantly stepped away from Rose and over to the computer which they had used to operate the rift manipulator. Putting on his specs, he scrolled through the data, reading it rapidly.

“You can go ahead and yell at me all you like, I don’t care. I know it was dangerous, but I wasn’t just going to give up, not after everything you’ve been through. And I thought –”

“Donna,” he said, whipping off his glasses dramatically. “I could kiss you. In fact, I think I will.”

“Ugh, could you yell at me instead?”

“Donna Noble, you are brilliant!” He swooped her into a hug. “Completely and totally brilliant!” The Doctor swung her around in a circle, which caused Donna to squeal in a rather undignified manner, and then he put her down, placing a chaste kiss on her cheek. “You’ve saved me again,” he added softly.

Donna flushed. “I just thought it seemed logical, given what had just happened –”

“Of course you did, it’s completely logical, but that’s why it’s brilliant.” He looked up. “And you, Jack Harkness,” he said, grinning and pointing at Jack as he descended the stairs.

“Do I get a hug too?” Jack asked cheekily, and his expression immediately shifted to surprise when the Doctor barrelled into him and hugged him hard, laughing and pounding him on the back. On impulse, the Doctor grabbed Jack’s face in his two hands and planted a loud kiss on his lips, then laughed some more at the shock on Jack’s face.

“What? After all these years I owed you one, didn’t I?” This started Rose laughing, and Jack responded by pulling both of them into a hug.

 

*** 

 

After introductions and more hugs, Rose realized that she was famished, so Ianto ordered pizzas and they all sat around the Hub, talking. A man named Rhys, who was introduced as Gwen’s husband, stopped by and joined in on demolishing the huge quantities of food. Rose and Jack compared notes on the Torchwoods in their respective universes. The Doctor and Donna shared stories of their recent adventures. Ianto, having realized that this was the same Rose from the 1879 Torchwood files, convinced them to tell the story of Queen Victoria and the werewolf. They did, constantly interrupting each other and giggling and disputing various details.

Given what she had seen in her dream, Rose watched Jack and Ianto keenly. She observed subtle signs of the relationship: the way they would stand in each other’s personal space, the way they looked at each other, the way they allowed seemingly inadvertent touches to linger. Perhaps she was so aware of the electricity between them because she was trying hard not to focus too ardently on the Doctor. He sat close to her on the couch, his leg pressed against her own and their shoulders touching. They mostly spent the evening talking to people other than each other, but their eyes met several times and Rose struggled each time to tear her gaze away. 

After the food was gone the conversation continued, and Rose allowed her head to come to rest on the Doctor’s shoulder. It was blissful. She closed her eyes and felt every point of contact between them. When would this stop feeling like a dream, she wondered?

“Are you sleepy?” he asked after a while, and she opened her eyes and lifted her head from his shoulder. 

“A little tired, but I don’t think I could sleep.” She looked over at Donna, who was at that moment yawning a face-cracking yawn. “Looks like Donna is ready for bed. Perhaps it’s time to go to the TARDIS?” Rose turned and looked at it longingly, not for the first time that night.

“You’ve missed her, haven’t you?” The Doctor asked. “Don’t know why that didn’t occur to me, you could’ve gone to see her before this.”

“I know, I just … ” Rose shrugged. “This was nice, just sitting around and talking. I figured the time would come.”

At that, the Doctor stood. “Donna, I’m realizing that it’s late and I dragged you out of bed at a rather early hour this morning. Rose and I are going to retire to the TARDIS, care to accompany us?”

“God yes, I’m completely knackered.” Donna stood up and wobbled a bit. She had polished off three beers along with her pizza. 

“Not going anywhere yet, are you, Doctor?” asked Jack.

“No, not tonight. I think I’ll just leave her here until morning if that’s all right with you, Jack.”

“Fine.” He winked at Rose. “Have a good night, you two.”

If the Doctor caught Jack’s implication, he gave no sign of it. Rose waved to Jack and the others and followed the Doctor and Donna through the doors of the TARDIS.

Even after her dream of it, Rose wasn’t prepared for the flood of emotions that being on the TARDIS brought her. The sound of it was so alien and yet so familiar, and she knew that she was crying fresh tears as she made a circuit of the console room, touching the columns. Donna and the Doctor watched her, not saying anything, allowing her to have a moment. Rose went over to the console and gently touched the controls, just as she had in her dream. The Doctor came up beside her, still silent.

“Remember when you forgot to tell Mickey to let go of that button and he held it down for half an hour?” she said, smiling.

“Yeah.” He pointed to another button. “Remember when you were going to press that one and kill us all?”

She laughed. “Yeah.” Their eyes met and Rose’s heart leapt. She wondered if he could hear it pounding.

Donna cleared her throat. “Well, I’m off to bed. And don’t mind me tomorrow, I’ll see to myself. Don’t give me a second thought, right? Goodnight, you two.” She ducked out of the room before either of them could respond.

Rose looked around once again. “I still can’t believe I’m here.”

“Nor can I.”

She sat down on the captain’s chair and he joined her. “I called my mum this morning to say goodbye.”

The Doctor took her hand. “What did she say?”

Rose laughed. “That I should slap you, after … um, that I should slap you.”

“Should I be bracing myself right now?”

“Nah, I figure I’ll save it for sometime when I actually feel like slapping you myself.”

“Oh, great, now I’ll have that hanging over my head.”

“I like Donna, she seems nice.”

“Yeah, she is.”

Rose turned to look at him. “She clearly cares a great deal for you. She seems like someone you can confide in.”

He chuckled. “If by ‘confide in,’ you mean get browbeat into revealing my secrets, then yes, she’s someone I can confide in.”

“I hope she’ll stay. I mean, I don’t want to mess things up for her, or horn in on anything. I’m not trying to displace her.”

“You wouldn’t. She’s like a sister to me, Donna is, and you … ” He trailed off, leaving the rest unsaid. He stood up suddenly, “We’ll talk to her tomorrow, make sure she doesn’t feel strange about it. No reason the three of us can’t travel together, is there?”

“No, of course not.” A part of Rose wanted him all to herself. But she did genuinely like Donna, and clearly the Doctor was quite fond of her. She hadn’t thought that there was anything romantic between them, not when Donna had made it so clear when they first met that she thought the Doctor loved _her_ , but it was still comforting to hear him describe her as being like a sister.

The Doctor was fiddling with the controls and avoiding her eyes. Rose stood and approached him cautiously. The urge to touch him was unbearable, so she reached out and grabbed his hand again, pulling him around to face her. “I missed you,” she said, standing as close to him as she dared.

“I missed you too.” She watched his eyes and saw a hint of fear there. Rose just stood and waited, hoping he would say more, do more than just stand there and hold her hand. He reached out with his other hand and brushed the hair off of her face and tucked it behind her ear. The feel of his fingers against the shell of her ear caused her to gasp, a tiny intake of breath. He left his hand there and Rose watched as he leaned marginally closer. Looking at his lips, she leaned closer to him herself. Her heart hammered and she felt heat ricocheting through her body.

Without warning, the Doctor jumped away from her. “You must be exhausted. Can’t be easy, crossing from one universe to another like that. It’s not good for you to be up so late. You should get to bed.”

“But –”

“No, no, don’t argue. I’m a doctor, remember. Your room is just where you left it. Go on, get some rest, I’ll be right here when you wake up, I promise.” He practically pushed her out of the console room and toward her old bedroom. Confused and dejected, Rose went.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donna speaks her mind and Rose and the Doctor have a talk.

“What on Earth are you doing in here?” Donna stood in the doorway to the kitchen, staring at him. The Doctor was leaning against the counter, holding a mug of tea.

“Rose needed rest. She went to bed.” He took a large sip of his steaming tea, managing to thoroughly burn the roof of his mouth.

Donna ventured further into the room. “And you didn’t go with her?” She seemed genuinely confused.

“Well, no. Not … that is … no.” 

“I’m sorry, I just assumed you’d be in a hurry to pick up where you left off. Reacclimating to each other, that sort of thing.”

“Reacclimating?”

“You know,” she said, grinning. “Rediscovering each other, right?” She gave him an exaggerated wink, and then actually went so far as to nudge him in the ribs.

He sighed. “You seem to have a mistaken impression about …that is, I wasn’t … I wasn’t sleeping with her, Donna.”

“What? Not _ever_?” 

“Not ever.”

Donna looked at him like he had grown a second head. “What, are you not … compatible with humans?” she asked, waving in the general direction of his groin.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and turned as if to leave the kitchen. “I’m not having this conversation with you.”

Donna gasped. “Oh my god, you aren’t compatible! What have you got down there, then? No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. Really, _really_ , just … never mind. I never asked.” She shuddered theatrically.

“Donna, that’s not it. I’m perfectly capable … That is, there’s nothing … incompatible … I mean my species didn’t, as a rule, but … ” He got more and more flustered, each sentence he attempted leading somewhere more dreadful than the previous one. 

“Didn’t what? You mean Time Lords never had sex?”

“Not with other species, not as a rule.” He pulled on his earlobe, still terribly uncomfortable. Was he sweating? “Mixing with lesser species, there were definite taboos against that.”

Donna just laughed. “All you ever do is mix with lesser species.”

“Well, there’s mixing, and then there’s …” He gestured with his hand vaguely in the air. “You know.”

“You can’t even say it! You’re supposedly this highly advanced life form, and you can’t even talk about sex. Ha!” 

“Of course I can, don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed. Then, as if to negate his words, he paused and stared into space, still tugging on his earlobe. Donna just crossed her arms across her chest and waited, smirking. Finally she gave up on waiting for him to continue.

“Who exactly do you need to answer to if you break these Time Lord taboos?”

“No one, of course, no one, but that doesn’t make it … easy. Or simple.”

“So you’ve never had sex with another species.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t not say that,” she retorted.

“That’s because it’s none of your business.” He calmly took another sip of tea, feeling like he was gaining his bearings in the conversation again.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. You could be a blushing virgin for all I care. It still surpasses understanding why you’re here and she’s there,” she said, gesturing in the direction of Rose’s bedroom. “Do you love her?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“And does she love you?”

“Donna,” he whined, in that you’re-trying-my-patience tone of voice that he used on her an average of three times per day.

“So, yes and yes. Then, at the risk of turning this into a barmy daytime drama, I say go to her. And don’t say it’s not that simple. Because it is.” He opened his mouth to speak, but she held out a finger, stopping him. “It is.” She then swung the finger around and pointed him towards the door. “Go.” He didn’t move. “Doctor, _go_!”

 

***

 

Rose stood in the middle of her old bedroom, wearing pyjamas and feeling lost. It was so achingly familiar, this room, but at the same time completely foreign. The closet was full of clothes from another life, another person. A girl. A girl who loved a man who was strange and ancient and eternal, a girl who didn’t think she needed anything more from him than he was willing to give. But now, oh, how different she was. How much wiser. How could she go on travelling with him now? He would expect her to be the same as before, and she would disappoint him. She would want more from him, and he would almost certainly disappoint her.

The knock on the door startled her so badly that she gasped, jumping. She called out, “Come in!” with a quavering voice.

The door opened to reveal the Doctor. He didn’t actually move to come in, but stayed on the threshold. He had taken off his suit jacket and was wearing only the light blue shirt and tie and blue trousers. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and Rose thought he seemed almost naked in comparison to his usual appearance. She smiled at him. “Hi,” she said. When he didn’t move, she added, “I said you could come in, you know.”

“Right!” He stepped a few paces into the room, letting the door snick closed behind him, and then stopped and shoved both hands into his pockets. “I was afraid you might be asleep already.”

“No. I should be sleepy, but I’m not.” She tilted her head slightly. “You all right?”

“Yeah, I just … I find I can’t let you out of my sight just now.”

“Okay,” she breathed. She took a step toward him. “That’s good.”

“Yeah. Good.” He took a step toward her.

She grinned, breaking the tension the only way she could think of. “I’m gonna hug you now, is that okay?”

He grinned back. “Absolutely.”

They met in the middle of the room for one of their bone-crushing hugs, and it felt so familiar that she almost sobbed from the feeling of it. They stood that way a long time. Rose felt his arms loosen slightly from around the middle of her chest and she started to pull away, but stopped when she felt his mouth ghosting over her hairline. Rose’s breath hitched and her eyes closed. He wasn’t kissing her, not exactly, but the feel of his breath against her skin was shockingly intimate. The Doctor’s lips brushed her forehead, his mouth slightly open, and she tightened her arms around his neck. “Rose,” he whispered, and then he did kiss her: first her forehead, then her temple, then her cheek. In response, she nuzzled against his neck and kissed his jaw, and she felt rather than heard his gasped reaction. Her hands slipped into his hair and his mouth opened and fell to her edge of her neck, just below her earlobe. He kissed her, and she felt the slightest touch of his tongue against her skin.

In her mind, she could see where this might lead. She knew in that moment that all she needed to do was turn her head to catch his lips. She could feel the hammer of his hearts against her chest, and maybe this is what had been on his mind since he knocked on her door. But he was the master of mixed signals, always had been, and they had spent so much time before she got lost dancing around each other, never saying what was really on their minds. Rose realized with sudden clarity that she was done with that. Through sheer force of will, she pulled completely out of his embrace, backed up, and looked at him. His gaze shifted to one of confusion.

“Doctor,” she said, glad that her voice wasn’t trembling too much, “what’s happening right now?”

His hand came up and rubbed the back of his neck, as it often did when he was feeling awkward or uncomfortable, and Rose was suddenly weak-kneed with how much she had missed even these simple little mannerisms of his. “Um … well, that is … Rose, what do you want to be happening right now?”

“Oh, no you don’t. You’re the one that got all weird earlier and sent me to bed, and now you come in here with your hugs and your mouth and … and things, and I want to know what your intentions are.”

He huffed. “Rose, it’s not like I have an agenda. I just … I wanted to be with you and I thought you …” The Doctor trailed off sort of helplessly.

She rolled her eyes. “Right.” She sat down on the bed, crossed her legs, and raked a hand through her hair. “You know what I gave up to be here. With you. And I know I have no right to expect anything beyond what we were to each other before.”

“Rose—” 

“No, just let me finish.” She sighed. “I told you I loved you that day, on the beach, but I had been thinking it for, I don’t know, a long time. Since before you regenerated. And when I said that I loved you …” she smiled ruefully, “I didn’t mean just as your best friend.”

“I know you didn’t.”

She looked up at him, surprised. Not surprised that he knew it, just surprised that he admitted knowing it. She decided to press him further. “I still love you. I’m still _in love_ with you. And I’m not sure I’m as willing to exist with you on your terms as I was when I was nineteen.”

He walked to her, towering over her as she sat on the bed. He reached down and grasped her hands, pulling her up until she was standing in front of him. They regarded each other for a beat. The Doctor dropped his eyes, drew in a shaky breath and spoke. “If I have one regret about the time we spent together,” he whispered, letting go of one of her hands and running his fingers gently up the skin of her bare arm, “it’s that I never told you, never showed you, how I feel about you.” He was watching his hand travel up her arm and rather studiously avoiding looking her in the eye. 

Rose shivered at his delicate touches and his words. She swallowed audibly and replied, “And how’s that?”

In that moment, he looked into her eyes, and Rose was startled by the intensity she saw there. He brought his hand back down and took hers again. “Rose Tyler,” he said, “I love you. And I’m sorry I lost the chance to say it to you before. Several chances to say it to you before, actually. But I’m saying it now.” He grinned a wicked grin the likes of which she had never seen on his face. “And I don’t just mean as a best friend,” he added.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The UST is resolved.

Rose hugged him fiercely and he hugged her back. She pressed her face against him, smelling his shaving soap and the spicy smell that was just indefinably him, and it made her feel a little dizzy. “You also said something about _showing_ me how you feel about me,” she said, smiling into his neck.

His hand came up and threaded into her hair. “Ah, yes. Right, I did say that,” he breathed. Rose pulled back to look at his face, and without further preamble, the Doctor brought his mouth to hers, using the hand in her hair to guide her in the kiss. His lips were soft and infinitely gentle, and Rose felt a flash of heat spark across her nerves at the realization that he was really, truly kissing her. Their lips slid over each other, slow and wet. Rose nipped gently at his bottom lip, teasing. After a moment his tongue slipped into her mouth and she responded, moaning softly. 

Her moan seemed to galvanize him. He raked his hands down her back and around and grasped her hips roughly, while at the same time trailing open-mouthed kisses down her neck. Rose let her head loll back. The whole thing felt incredibly surreal; she had had dreams like this, before _and_ after getting lost in the other universe, and in spite of her honest, measured words earlier, she couldn’t quite reckon how they had actually gotten to this point.

She felt his hands slide up the bare skin of her sides, dragging her pyjama top up with them. She pulled away slightly and reached down to help him, tugging the shirt quickly over her head and chucking it across the room. Their lips met again almost violently, teeth clacking together as they tried to get as close to each other as they possibly could. The Doctor clutched at her desperately.

Rose’s fingers came up and started pulling at his tie, and since it was, as always, loose already, she managed to untie it without her mouth leaving his. She pulled it from his collar and dropped it to the floor. Breaking the kiss so that she could work on the buttons of his shirt, she smiled. “I’ve thought about this,” she said, biting her lip, “more than a few times.”

“Really?” he gasped as she kissed the area of his exposed chest. 

“Mmm hmm,” Rose murmured. “Many, many times.” She untucked his shirt and finished her work on the buttons. His shirt joined hers somewhere on the other side of the room. 

“Me too,” he admitted, his hands coming up to her breasts. Cupping them carefully, he brushed his thumbs over her nipples. He watched the action of his hands, his mouth hanging slack, his breath coming in shallow pants.

“Why didn’t you ever … act on it, then?” Rose interspersed the words with kisses, moving up his chest to his neck.

He shook his head. “A lot of sacred, ancient reasons which I’m sure made sense at the time.”

“Did they?” Rose trailed a hand down his chest and over the front of his trousers.

The Doctor moaned and swallowed. “No, not really.”

Rose sat down on the bed behind her and lay back, pulling him on top of her. One of his knees went between her legs and his hands went to either side of her. He kissed her deeply, his tongue entwining with hers. Rose felt his erection pressed against her hip and her thighs clenched around his leg at the thought of finally, finally making love to him. After his reaction to her in the console room, this was much more than she could have ever hoped for. She was giddy. She was drunk on him. He pulled his mouth from hers and traced a path of wet kisses down her neck to her chest, doing things with his tongue that made her writhe underneath him. “Doctor,” she said, “I want you so much.”

He looked up at her, seeming almost surprised, although surely it was obvious that she wanted him, she thought. A grin broke out over his face. “Rose, that feeling is entirely mutual.”

Rose grinned back. “Good. Now take your clothes off.”

The Doctor rushed to obey, hopping on each foot to pull his trainers and socks off. She watched as his hands worked the button and zip of his trousers. He pulled his trousers and pants off in one motion and then crawled back onto the bed with her, still grinning. “You have me at a disadvantage now,” he remarked as he hooked his thumbs under the waistband of her pyjama bottoms. 

“Well, we can’t have that,” Rose responded cheekily. Taking that as an assent, the Doctor pulled them off, Rose lifting her bum off the bed to help him. Her knickers followed, and she giggled as the Doctor threw them across the room with a flourish. His smile disappeared as his eyes raked over her hungrily. Rose watched as he slowly crawled up her body. She realized she was relieved to see that under his clothes he looked like any aroused, human male.

The Doctor settled on top of her, between her parted thighs. The feeling of his naked body all along the length of hers was bliss. They kissed languorously, and Rose was torn between wanting to take her time with this and wanting him right now, no more waiting.

“Rose, the way your mouth tastes, it’s … I can’t describe it.” He ran a hand up and down her body, over her hip and belly and breasts. “You’re so beautiful. Your body, so beautiful.” He kept whispering to her as he touched her and planted more kisses on her face and neck. “You’re so warm. I love that you’re so warm.”

Rose giggled, and the Doctor looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, it’s just … I should’ve known you’d be talkative.”

He smirked. “Yes, you should’ve. Want me to be quiet?”

“No, no. Keep talking, it’s sexy.”

“All right then. Good.” He shifted slightly to one side, and Rose took the opportunity to touch him, trailing her fingers over his chest, his side, his bony hip, his bum. When she reached down and circled his length with her hand, the Doctor hissed. She stroked up and down a few times experimentally and noticed smugly that he had stopped talking, his hips moving in time with her hand, his mouth hanging open. 

Her smugness didn’t last, as his hand reached down and brushed gently over her centre, causing her to moan and raise up off the bed, seeking more contact. He dipped a finger inside her. “Oh, so hot and wet. You’re so wet, so ready.” She flushed at that, feeling embarrassed at how true it was. He seemed to sense her self-consciousness. “No, Rose, it’s wonderful, I love it. It’s gorgeous.” 

She pulled his head up to her face and kissed him hard. “Please…” she gasped. He rolled back on top of her and she bucked up against him. “Please, I need you, make love to me, please.”

She brought her knees up, her feet sliding along the mattress. He positioned himself over her and she reached down to guide him inside. He pushed in slowly, and as he did Rose keened. She angled her hips and brought them up to meet him, pressing until he was as deep as he could get. They were motionless for a long moment, recovering from the overwhelming pleasure of it. She ran her hands up his back slowly, feeling a slight trembling from his muscles. The Doctor pressed a kiss to her shoulder, rubbing his cheek against hers.

Rose broke the stillness first, dragging her hands down to his bum, dropping and then lifting her hips against him. The Doctor gasped. “Rose, oh, that’s …” He pulled out slowly and thrust in again. “So good. You’re so …” They established an achingly slow rhythm, and Rose was shocked at how close she was after only a few strokes. She pulled his head up from her shoulder so that she could see his face, and she melted at the way he was looking at her, with an expression of lust and wonder and gratitude. The Doctor pressed his forehead to hers, still maintaining that perfect tempo that was gradually undoing her. She panted, moaning and vocalizing nonsense while he kept up his running monologue. “Rose, love you so much … uh, yes … missed you, I _missed_ you … you’re … my love, Rose … love you …” 

The sound of his husky, whispered voice, full of endearments for her, helped to send Rose over the edge. Ecstasy exploded outward and zinged down her nerves and she came with a shout, her fingers digging into his shoulders. The Doctor sped up his movements and he was soon following her. He threw his head back and groaned, his teeth clenched and eyes squeezed shut. As he came down, Rose threaded her fingers into the damp hair at the nape of his neck and planted a soft kiss on his cheek. He collapsed onto her, his slight frame a comfortable weight. Rose let her feet slip down the bed and she hooked an ankle over the back of his calf, stroking gently with her foot. Their breathing gradually slowed. 

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Mmm, brilliant.” She continued combing his hair with her fingers. She felt his lips moving over her collar bone. Rose was suddenly overcome with the intensity of her feelings, and she swallowed around a lump in her throat. “I love you.”

His head came up and he looked her in the eyes. “Quite right too,” he said, smiling. 

The Doctor lifted off of her, falling to one side on the bed. Rose reached down and grabbed the duvet, pulling it over them both. She rolled over to face him and he pulled her into an embrace. Inhaling deeply of his scent, she burrowed into his chest. She hadn’t ever imagined she could feel this content, certainly had never felt this kind of perfection in the afterglow of sex before. Nuzzling against him, Rose sighed happily. Her eyes drifted closed, and she was asleep before another minute had gone by.

 

*** 

 

When Rose woke a few hours later, it was to the Doctor watching her with rapt attention. She yawned. “What time is it?”

“About 3:30, local time.”

“Have you been watching me sleep all this while?” she asked.

“No, I actually slept for three hours, which for me is practically an eternity.” He reached over and pulled her against him. “Not that I wouldn’t lie here and watch you sleep all night. In fact, I think tomorrow that’s just what I’ll do. Tonight, I was just exhausted,” he said, sighing.

Rose wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly. They held each other, not speaking, for several minutes. Finally, Rose pulled away and looked at him. “When did you fall in love with me?” she asked, running a finger down his sideburn.

“What?” he asked, opening his eyes.

“When did you first fall in love with me?”

“Oh. Um. I think it was when we were trapped by the Gelph? You know, Cardiff and Charles Dickens and all that? We thought we were going to die, and you took my hand.” He paused to take her hand now. “And I looked at you … and for the first time in a long time, I wanted to live, I mean _really_ wanted to live, and it was because of you, Rose.” He leaned over and kissed her sweetly on the lips. Breaking the spell, he flopped down on his back, jostling the covers. “So what about you? When did you fall in love with me?”

“Oh, lots of times,” she said with a cheeky grin.

“What’s that supposed to mean, lots of times?”

“Well, there was the time I stood next to you and watched the Earth burn. I fell in love with you a little bit then. And there was that time, when we were in Cardiff again, actually, and you were wearing that silly blinking torch on your head. And then of course, you changed, so I had to start falling in love with you all over again. Which didn’t take long. I knew I was done for when you put that red paper crown on your head at Christmas.”

“So me looking silly had a lot to do with it?”

She shrugged. “I guess it did. Adorably silly. Not that I didn’t also find you sexy, especially this you,” she said, running her hand down to his chest. “But I guess you know that, thanks to Cassandra.”

He laughed. “Right.”

“I just assumed you didn’t feel that way about me,” Rose said.

The Doctor took her chin in his hand and looked at her seriously. “I always did, Rose. I just felt like there were all sorts of reasons that I shouldn’t act on it. You were young and I am so, so old. I’m so damaged. I didn’t want to defile you with –”

“Defile, what a word!” she interrupted. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, kissing him. “Besides, if that’s what that was, you’re welcome to _defile_ me any time you like,” she said seductively and grinned, her tongue between her teeth.

He couldn’t help but chortle at that, and they lay there, laughing in each other’s arms for several moments. Rose rested her head on the Doctor’s chest and sighed contentedly as he stroked her hair.

After a few silent minutes, the Doctor piped up again. “You know what I’m thinking?” 

“What are you thinking?” she said, looking up.

“I’m thinking that perhaps, things went much too quickly the first time we made love.”

Rose shrugged. “Well, that’s to be expected, all things considered.” She stroked his cheek. “It was still _very_ … good for me.”

“Oh, I know that, I was perfectly aware of your orgasm,” he proclaimed matter-of-factly, which made her giggle. “I just mean … there’s something to be said for taking one’s time. For example,” he said, and if Rose didn’t know better she would have said he was positively leering at her, “there are many, many parts of your body I didn’t get a chance to taste the first time round.”

As it turned out, despite the Doctor’s insistence in the console room earlier, Rose didn’t get much rest at all that night.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goodbye to Torchwood and the beginning of a new adventure.

“You’re up and out of the TARDIS pretty early, aren’t you?” Jack smiled, glad to have a distraction from the papers he had been only half-reading.

“Well, I don’t sleep much. Not unlike yourself.” The Doctor sat across from Jack, his desk between them.

“Thought last night might be an exception,” Jack said.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Why do you say that?” he responded, his expression one of complete innocence.

Jack just laughed. “Fine, fine, don’t tell me anything. But allow me to say, you look very happy and relaxed this morning. Younger even, much as I hate to admit it.”

The Doctor just smiled enigmatically and changed the subject. “Actually, I came to talk to you for a reason. There’s something I may need your help with.”

“What’s that?”

“Not long ago, I became a father again. Well, of sorts. Not in the traditional way. It was a genetic progenation, done at gunpoint. Still, the upshot was that I ended up with a grown-up, biological daughter named Jenny.”

“So what happened?” Jack said, curious.

“She died. Or, I thought she died. Except Rose met her, older and very much alive, in the year 2029 during one of her brief sojourns into this universe. So it would seem that perhaps she didn’t die after all. I mean to find out.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Just keep your ear to the ground. I’m going to take Rose and Donna and try to retrace our steps from the planet she was … born on, but I don’t know if she’ll still be there, or what may have happened. Just, if you hear anything about her, or if you have any contacts that might be able to help …”

“You can count on me. I’ll call you if I hear anything.”

“Thanks, Jack.” The Doctor stood up. “You know, it was a standing invitation that I gave you last year. There’s always room for you on the TARDIS.”

“There’s a part of me that would like nothing better, but now isn’t the time,” Jack said with a heavy sigh. “I lost two of my team members not that long ago.”

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said.

“Yeah. I’m working on convincing Martha to leave UNIT and come work for me here. She hasn’t said yes yet, but I think she’s weakening. Either way, my place is with Torchwood for now.”

“Let me know if you change your mind.”

Jack grinned. “Well, if you and Rose ever get bored in the bedroom and want a third to spice things up –”

“Stop it,” interrupted the Doctor, but he laughed. “Once Rose and Donna are up and about, we’ll be back to say goodbye.”

“Come visit often.”

The Doctor patted Jack on the back. “I don’t think Rose would have it any other way.”

“You’re a lucky man, Doctor.”

“I think I’m starting to realize that.”

 

***

 

Rose awoke, the TARDIS-generated morning light penetrating her sleep. She looked around and found herself to be alone in the bed. With anyone else she might’ve been disappointed, but this was the Doctor, and she couldn’t expect him to keep to a human sleeping schedule. Especially when, as he had said, he had already slept what was for him a long time. Smiling at her memories and stretching, Rose got up. She showered and dressed and ventured out of her room.

She found that she was quite hungry, so she went first to the kitchen where she found Donna sitting at the table, drinking tea and reading a book.

“Morning,” said Rose.

“Good morning,” Donna replied, smiling. “Wasn’t sure if I’d see you this morning. Where’s the Doctor?”

Rose shrugged. “Not sure.” She started to fish around in the cabinets, hoping to find her favourite mug. If he had kept all of her other things, it stood to reason that he had kept her mug. She just needed to find it.

Donna’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not sure? Are you telling me that you didn’t see him last night?”

Rose whirled around. “Um … no, I didn’t say that. I just don’t know where he is at the moment.”

“So you did talk last night.”

Rose grinned and flushed in spite of her best efforts to appear casual. “Among other things.”

Donna let out a breath. “Well, that’s a relief. I thought I was going to have to smack some sense into him. Again.”

Rose’s eyebrows went up. “Wait, that was your doing last night? Him coming to my room, and, um …”

“I assume by ‘and, um’, you mean things went well between the two of you? Not that I want any details, _please_ ,” Donna added.

Rose laughed. “I wasn’t going to give you any, believe me. But yes, things went … well. Very well.” She resumed her mug search. Grinning, Rose added because if she didn’t say it out loud she might burst, “He loves me.”

“Of course he does, didn’t I say so? Blimey, the two of you, I don’t think you’d have ever gotten together at all if it weren’t for me. You’d be on the TARDIS with him twenty years from now, still holding hands and making googly eyes at each other, all that unresolved sexual tension frying your brains.”

“Aha!” Rose shouted, coming up from a lower cabinet with her prize, a bright red oversized mug with swirling purple stripes on it. “I knew it would be here somewhere.” She smirked. “Don’t worry, Donna, nothing unresolved any more.”

Donna rolled her eyes. “I should probably see if you need treatment for all the paper cuts.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Listen, Donna, I just want you to know … I hope you won’t feel, that is, I hope you’ll stay with us. I’m not looking to displace you. You’ve clearly been so good for him, probably in ways that I couldn’t be. And he sees you as a sister –”

“He said that?”

Rose nodded. “Anyway, I’m not … I mean, I really want you to stay.”

“You better believe I’m staying. Somebody’s got to save the universe now that you’ve got _his_ head all clouded with sex. He’ll be like any other bloke now, tripping over his own feet to get a look at your bum.”

Rose burst out laughing at the mental image this conjured, and Donna joined her. It was at that moment that the Doctor breezed in, all restless energy and, Rose noted, back in the brown suit. The timing of his appearance just made them laugh harder. “Why does this always happen?” he muttered under his breath, but then Rose came over and kissed him good morning, and he decided if getting laughed at was the price he had to pay for this kind of happiness, he’d pay it gladly.

 

*** 

 

Rose hugged Jack hard. “We’ll be back to see you soon.” 

“You better be,” he replied, watching as she blinked back tears. “Take care of yourself out there, OK, doll? And no more getting separated from the Doctor. I don’t want to see him that miserable again, you hear me?”

“Jack,” Rose said seriously, “eventually I will leave him. Even if I stay with him until I’m an old woman, I have an expiration date. When that day comes—”

“Rosie—”

“Jack, when that day comes, please look after him. If it’s tomorrow or seventy years away, please don’t let him be alone.”

Jack nodded, taking her face in his hands. “I promise.” He chuckled. “Guess that’s another benefit to being immortal.”

Rose winced. “Jack, I’m so sorry—”

“No you don’t. Don’t ever apologize to me for that, okay?” He shoved at her playfully. “Now get going, you guys are wasting the whole morning hanging around here.”

Donna came up and Jack pulled her into a hug. “Donna, it was great to meet you.”

“You too, Jack.” She cocked her head at Ianto, who was making small talk with the Doctor over next to the TARDIS. “You take care with that one. Don’t break his heart.”

Jacks eyebrows shot up, making Donna and Rose laugh. “He thinks it’s not obvious,” Rose said to Donna.

Donna shook her head. “Men.”

“Donna, don’t let the Doctor forget what a marvel you are. If you ever get sick of him, you come find me, okay?” Jack said, grinning.

Donna leaned over to Rose. “Is he offering me a job or a shag?”

“Both, probably.”

Jack gave each of them one final hug, then watched as they joined the Doctor at the doorway of the TARDIS. Waving to everybody one last time, Donna dashed through the doors. Rose took the Doctor’s hand and their faces lit up with ridiculously wide grins. They turned and waved, then went through the doors themselves. As Jack and his team watched, the blue box pulsed and wavered, gradually fading from view.


	17. Epilogue

March 23, 2073

A wintery wind, too chill for the season, blew across the ground. The trees hadn’t yet begun to bud, and their barren branches stretched into the sky as if reaching for something. 

He crouched on the ground in front of the smooth grey stone. It was a strangely human custom, and he wasn’t really sure what had possessed him. Without it though, he felt he had little reason to return to Earth. Not now. Without this marker, something somewhere in the whole universe that marked her passing, the most amazing human woman who had ever lived, what was there to say that she had existed? He had found himself wondering often over the last few days why the entire universe hadn’t ground to a halt when she stopped. Instead, the universe mocked him by continuing on its merry way.

“You … oh. You regenerated.” The woman came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. Her turned to look at her. She was small but regal, her blonde hair now streaked with grey. She was still as beautiful as ever. “You look younger than me now, that just doesn’t seem fair,” she said, smiling.

“That body was worn out, Jenny. I was old. No one to stay that way for any more.”

“Was that the only reason?”

He sighed. “I died ten days ago. Might as well make it official.” He stood up, a tall man with broad shoulders and long, almost-black hair pulled together at the nape of his neck. “And I thought it might make me miss her less. That it would make it all more remote. Stupid. I shared 68 years with her, that can’t be wiped away with cellular regeneration.”

She took his hand and nodded toward the stone. “It came out well.”

His eyes followed her gaze briefly, then flicked away. “Yes, it’s fine.”

ROSE MARION TYLER  
April 27, 1986 – March 13, 2073  
Beloved wife  
The stuff of legend

He looked at his daughter. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so old, Jenny.”

“You still have plenty to live for, you know.” 

“I know.” A hint of a smile ghosted over his face. “Did I ever tell you how she came back to me from a parallel universe?”

“A few times, yeah.” She pulled on his hand and led him over to a bench. They sat together under an oak tree in a cemetery on 21st century Earth. The daughter put her head on her father’s shoulder. “Tell me again.”


End file.
